Drew Kempel: four years of excellence

Century basketball star reaches his final year of high school hoops

 SPORTS | November 2024

North Dakota high school basketball in the 2020’s has been incredible for the Patriots. It potentially could be the best decade for Century High School basketball; their team has been one of the best-performing basketball programs in North Dakota. Although the school has not won a state championship in these years, four Patriot graduates within two years (2023 and 2024) have become or advanced to division one collegiate players in basketball. Drew Kempel is soon to be a part of this elite group of Patriots in leaving Century for collegiate basketball, and he will join his former teammates Ryan Erikson (University Of North Dakota), William Ware (Bismarck State College), Anthony Doppler (University Of North Dakota), and Isaiah Schafer (Southern Minnesota State University).

With this lineup, the 2022-2023 season was the Patriots’ best chance at winning state. These talented players facilitated an undefeated regular season with large marginal leads. They were so dominant that the WTOC11 Sports Director Jeff Roberts stated on X, “There’s a reason that [Century] is unbeaten on the year, and it’s because any of their stars can go off on any given night.” He posted this after William Ware put up a solid 28 points on the Mandan Braves. 

However, in their first game of the state playoffs, they took a loss to Fargo North, the eventual winners of the tournament, with star players Jeremiah Sem and Carter Zeller playing well. Kempel, being only a sophomore at this time, was the first man off the bench and was already a high-points, rebounds, and assists producer for the team. Later that year on July 11, he received his first college offer from Minot State University, and exactly one year later on July 11, 2024, he made his commitment.

Kempel has been playing with and against the best players in the Midwest for about four years now through school basketball and Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) ball. He has been consistently flying up the North Dakota ranks becoming one of the top players in the state. Kempel has been a driving force for a large part of the Patriots' success and will move on to become a star at the next level.