For the first time in more than half a century, major hardware is coming to northwestern Tama and southeastern Grundy counties.
The Gladbrook-Reinbeck boys’ basketball team completed an undefeated season (28-0) Friday with a Class 1A championship win over Maple Valley-Anthon-Oto. It’s the first championship in a major sport for Gladbrook or Reinbeck since the 1960 Gladbrook girls’ 6-on-6 title, and comes in the same school year as the exciting Class A football championship game that ended in a GR loss to Logan-Magnolia.
It’s something Rebel Country can celebrate despite the off-the-court controversy of Gladbrook’s school building being closed, an issue alluded to in the Waterloo Courier‘s story from the semifinals. (Of minor note: MVAO and pre-merger Reinbeck share the same mascot, the Rams.)
As is often the case, the boys’ championship was won by the team that beat North Tama, and the girls’ championship was won by the team that beat the team that beat North Tama. (The Newell-Fonda girls crushed Colo-NESCO in the first round of state. Also, their football team won the 8-man title last fall, so there’s another case of riches coming to a school that has recently dealt with the pain of shuttering a building.)
On a related note, both the boys’ and girls’ universal tombstone-style trophies are universally AWFUL. It’s got to be a cost-saving measure of some sort, since now the only thing that changes is the nameplate, but (aside from their true meaning) yuck.