Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Shortly after giving a verbal commitment to the basketball staff at Truman State Alex Wiese sat down to make several phone calls to family and friends.

One person was at the top of that list.

Wiese immediately dialed Regina classmate and AAU teammate Kennedy Wallace who had given her own commitment to the Bulldogs a year earlier.

The reaction from Wallace was exactly what Wiese expected – extreme excitement. Or maybe even more.

“I called her right after and I said ‘guess what I just did?’,” Wiese said. “She just freaked out.”

After committing to Truman State nearly a year apart the two long-time friends made their college plans official on Wednesday signing national letters of intent to play for the Division II program in Missouri.

Wallace and Wiese joined Katie Bracken in signing letters of intent on Wednesday as Bracken signed to play softball at Division II Minnesota State.

“It’s really awesome to have the chance to keep playing with her,” Wallace said. “We’ve been playing together since seventh grade and we are great friends and we connect so well on the court. It’s exciting.”
A 5-foot-8 sharpshooter with 141 career 3-pointers, Wallace committed to the Bulldogs in October of 2017 before the start of her junior season.

Wallace went on to post the best season of her career last winter, averaging a career-high 11.2 points while hitting a team-high 79 3-pointers to help Regina to the Class 2A state tournament.

“My first there I just loved it because the coaches are so great and they show how much they care about you,” Wallace said. “I wasn’t nervous there at all.”

Wiese earned first team all-state honors last season when she averaged a double-double with 15.4 points and 10.6 rebounds per game.

The 6-foot forward missed the state tournament with a torn ACL that caused her to miss the summer and muddied her recruitment.

Regina coach and Kennedy’s father Jeff Wallace brought up Wiese often to the Truman State coaching staff.

“Alex was a different situation because of her knee injury so people kind of lost track of her,” Jeff Wallace said. “I kept talking to the Truman State coaching staff telling them to keep her in the back of their minds because she is a heck of a player.”

Once Truman State and head coach Amy Eagan began courting Wiese it didn’t take long for her to realize it was her future home.

“I wasn’t really looking at Truman that much but once they started to talking to me within a week I committed,” Wiese said. “I just knew that’s where I wanted to play.”

Some encouragement from Wallace didn’t hurt but both players say they didn’t talk much about their college decisions.

“I told her to do what is best for her and I will support her in whatever she does,” Wallace said. “Obviously I was really happy that it was Truman State. I was on vacation when she called me and I just screamed. I was so happy.”

Bracken earned first-team all-state honors for the second straight season last summer after helping Regina to a Class 2A runner-up finish.

She joins a Minnesota State-Mankato program that went 64-7 on its way to winning the Division II national title in 2017.

“Once I stepped on campus it just felt like home,” Bracken said. “I just fell in love with it.”

An all-around player, Bracken hit .376 with 22 RBI and was 17-14 with a 2.56 ERA and 158 strikeouts in 183 innings.  

“They really liked that I was very versatile and that I can pitch and play short or first,” Bracken said. “They liked that I’d played short and showed those quicker reactions.”