Former high school basketball standouts find new college homes

Emily La Chapell is hoping her final season as a college basketball player will be a memorable one closer to home.

The former Appleton East standout and Post-Crescent girls basketball player of the year will play at UW-Oshkosh next season after graduating from Belmont University this past spring after a three-year career playing for the Bruins.

La Chapell, a 5-foot-11 guard, averaged 5.7 points last season after 8.5 points (2024-25) and 8.1 (2023-24) the two previous seasons. She transferred to Belmont after beginning her collegiate career at Marquette, where she garnered Big East Conference all-freshman team honors (5.3 points, 3.0 rebounds) in 2022-23.

Former Appleton East standout Emily La Chapell has transferred from Belmont University to UW-Oshkosh to finish her college basketball career.

She’ll join a talented UWO team that finished 27-5 last season and earned its second consecutive trip to the NCAA Division III Final Four. La Chapell said she enjoyed the experience playing in Nashville and “being independent and experiencing somewhere different.”

“I think I’ve had a lot of perspective from that and it’s overall been super positive to my life,” she said. “But now it’s just wanting to get back around my family and still being able to be involved in the day-to-day stuff that they were doing. That’s really important to me.

“I definitely just wanted to get back closer to them so I can definitely be more involved and then a lot of it was just like creating the foundation of what I would want to do for a career because I feel like it’s one thing to just play a year and then be done.”

The Titans have had tremendous success under coach Brad Fischer. Fischer, who will enter his 15th season with the team in the fall, has guided UWO to third-round appearances in 2019 and 2020, an Elite Eight appearance in 2022, a Sweet 16 berth in 2024 before the consecutive Final Four appearances.

The team’s top two scorers, junior Paige Seckar (13.2 points, 7.1 rebounds), a former Oshkosh West standout, and senior Sammi Beyer, a former teammate of La Chapell at Appleton East, are returning. Beyer averaged 12.2 points, 3.1 assists and 3.0 rebounds last season.

Former Weyauwega-Fremont standout Olivia Witkowski is also transferring to UW-Oshkosh after a solid freshman season at UW-Eau Claire. Witkowski, a 6-foot forward, averaged 9.7 points and 4.9 rebounds last season for the Blugolds.

“They’ve all just been super welcoming and excited,” La Chapell said. “They’re just some of the hardest-working people that I know and they want to show up and be great every day. And just that passion is what I’m looking for and everyone there is just so passionate about what they’re doing.

“[Their success] the last couple of years, I think that’s super admirable. And just enjoying what you get to do every day. I was really missing that the last couple of years and I can just tell – even how Sammi Beyer speaks about the program and just how real they keep it – I think it’ll be just a really healthy environment for me to add to as well as elevate.”

Emily’s younger brother, Joey, is a starter on the UWO men’s basketball team. She also mentioned that she has a desire to possibly be a coach and her connection with Fischer may help accelerate that goal.

“I feel like I have a lot of good connections, especially in Oshkosh and the Appleton area,” she said. “Coach Fischer, I’ve known him for six years and he’s a super great guy. Definitely someone that if I do decide to continue maybe being a coach one day and maybe someone I’d want to coach with. I know his ethics and his standards hold strong above anything else. I really value that.”

Appleton North's Nathan Ramus, left, has committed to play basketball at Northern Illinois University. — Appleton North’s Nathan Ramus, left, has committed to play basketball at Northern Illinois University.

Ramus commits to Northern Illinois

Appleton North standout guard Nathan Ramus announced his commitment to Northern Illinois in a social media post last week. The 6-1 senior was a first-team all-Fox Valley Association pick and an honorable-mention selection on the WBCA all-state team in Division 1 this past season. He averaged 12.0 points, 5.8 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game.

Ramus had initially committed to play at Northern Michigan with head coach Matt Majkrzak before Majkrzak was named the head coach at Northern Illinois in mid-March.

Former Kimberly standout Raegan Krueger, left, has transferred to Northern Michigan University.

Brillion’s Lorenz, Kimberly’s Krueger find new homes

Former Brillion star and DePaul basketball player Jeremy Lorenz will play at the University of St. Thomas after entering the transfer portal March 22.

Lorenz announced his decision on social media April 23. He spent two seasons at Wofford before transferring to DePaul. The 6-8 forward sustained a hip injury early this past season and was lost for the year. He enters St. Thomas with at least one more year of eligibility.

Kimberly grad Raegan Krueger is on her way to Northern Michigan after entering the transfer portal. The 6-1 forward played last season at Minnesota-Duluth, where she averaged 3.0 points and 1.8 rebounds as a freshman.