A successful season on the hardwood not only means a plethora of postseason accolades for the players, but for the coaches as well and a pair of KCII area girls’ basketball coaches were recently recognized for their work this winter.

Mitch Wachs of Winfield-Mt. Union and Lisa Graber of WACO were tabbed as the North and South Division Coaches of the Year in the Southeast Iowa Super Conference. Wachs led an experienced Wolves’ bunch to their first undefeated regular season since 1998. In his 29th year at the helm, the Wolves finished with an 18-1 record, were conference champs out of the north division, and had a class 1A regional semifinal berth. A humble Wachs tells KCII Sports the credit for this award goes to his players. “When your team is successful that is when you get these kind of awards. As coaches we don’t feel like we worked any harder than a coach on a team that went 10-10. So when you have good kids that do good things that is when these awards come around.” 

Graber turned around the Warriors in her first year as head coach with their most wins in three seasons. After having back-to-back five win campaigns, WACO finished the 2020-21 season with an 8-13 mark and were playing their best ball at the right time. They concluded the season winning three of their final five games including a signature 68-43 victory over ranked Van Buren on February 1st. The Warriors placed fifth in a loaded south division with a 6-7 conference record.