From their height to their shooting ability and tenacious rebounding effort, the Rabbits finished the season 26-4 overall and came away as Tomahawk/Valley Conference champions, while spending a large portion of the year either state-ranked in the top-10 Class A coaches poll.

“We always fight, and we’re going to come back next year, and we’re going to be the same fighters. We’re not going to hang our heads,” Wabasso head coach Scott Leopold said of the season. “Their fight was good, and they’ll be back next year. They want it. We will be back.”

Wabasso defeated Nicollet with full command, 113-86, on Feb. 24 for the conference championship.

Winning its first 14 games, the Wabasso squad knew it had the key pieces this season to make a deep run and check wishes off of their goal list.

Photo by Samantha Davis: Wabasso's Caden Frericks grabs the offensive rebound and begins to go back up in the Section 3A North subsection championship on March 7 against Central Minnesota Christian in Marshall.

Leopold spoke throughout the postseason about how the team made a goal list at the beginning of the year, and how it has brought the team fulfillment being able to check it off as the season progressed.

“I’m just proud of everybody giving it everything they had. Like I said, they were on a mission from the get-go. They wanted to stamp their names in the history books. They wanted to do stuff that no team in Wabasso has done before,” Leopold said. “We had our goal sheet that we just went off of. We kept checking off those boxes … I still think the ones that we did check off outweigh the ones that we didn’t.”

The Rabbits had a multi-faceted, talented roster this season that featured a trio of players named to the Tomahawk/Valley All-Conference team, along with winning both the conference Player and Coach of the Year awards.

6-foot-5 senior guard and forward Brayden Guetter was named the conference’s Player of the Year, and led the scoring front for Wabasso throughout the season.

Guetter continued to utilize his height and proved to be a three-level shooter as the year went on.

Photo by Samantha Davis: Wabasso senior Brayden Guetter goes in for a fastbreak dunk in the Section 3A North subsection championship on March 7 against Central Minnesota Christian in Marshall.

Sophomore guard Drew Kemp was another strong shooter and was named to the All-Conference team, particularly being a core perimeter shooter for the Rabbits.

Caden Frericks, the third Wabasso player that was named to the All-Conference team, was a rebounding machine that continuously earned Wabasso extra possessions and points and proved to be a force in the paint, while breaking a few records along the way.

Frericks now holds Wabasso’s single-game and single-season rebounding records, both of which he claimed one game apart during the postseason.

Frericks broke the single-game rebounding record against Minneota on Feb. 28 in the Section 3A North subsection quarterfinals when he grabbed 34. He then became Wabasso’s single-season leading rebounder the following game in the semifinals against Dawson-Boyd on Mar. 3 where he finished with 27 rebounds, surpassing the previous season record of 475, set by Tanner Bock in 2013-14.

“It feels really good,” Frericks said after breaking the single-game rebounding record. “It’s [team effort] been strong the whole season, everybody’s done their part. If one person’s not doing good that night, another person steps up.”

Photo by Samantha Davis: Wabasso head coach Scott Leopold watches his team from the sideline in the Section 3A North subsection championship on March 7 against Central Minnesota Christian in Marshall.

Finishing the season with 498 rebounds, Frericks made his way to sixth all time in Minnesota’s single-season rebounding leaderboard.

Leopold also said throughout the postseason that rebounding has continuously been one of Wabasso’s strongest areas on the court this year.

At the helm of all the success was Leopold, who was named this year’s Coach of the Year for the Tomahawk/Valley Conference.

Leopold took over the program two seasons ago, and has quickly and efficiently helped turn things around.

Wabasso finished the 2023-24 season 5-22 overall. In Leopold’s first year as head coach in 2024-25, the Rabbits added 10 more wins to their record, going 15-12. Now with another season under his belt, Wabasso improved by another 11 wins to 26-4.

Photo by Samantha Davis: The Wabasso boys basketball team stands with their runner-up medals after the Section 3A North subsection championship on March 7 against Central Minnesota Christian in Marshall.

The Rabbits’ season came to an end on March 7 in the Section 3A North subsection championship, falling 90-64 to Central Minnesota Christian.

But to get there, Wabasso confidently made its way through the section tournament with an 81-60 win over Minneota in the quarterfinals, then defeated the 2025 section champions and Class A state champions Dawson-Boyd 89-70.

Following the win over the Blackjacks to advance to the subsection championship, Guetter said he was excited that he and the team got an opportunity to play at Southwest Minnesota State University, as they never made it that far ]during his time.

Leopold additionally noted the excitement that came from playing on the Mustangs’ home floor, citing that it was also his first time being there and that the players loved the atmosphere.

Wabasso will look to keep things moving in a positive direction next season, after graduating a strong group of seniors in Guetter, Jayden Remiger, Avery Eis, Tavyn Larson and Josh Timm.

“They [the seniors] do a little bit of everything for us. We’ve got great rebounding, we’ve got great energy, great scoring, great effort. Brayden, Jayden, Josh Timm, Avery, Tavyn, they’re just the core of what helped drive us through,” Leopold said. “They just always came to practice with good attitudes and good fight … I just thought it was a great year. They mean the world to me.”