2024 Kaukauna Ghosts softball, photo by Paul Stumpf/PS Portraits

KAUKAUNA — The record-setting Kaukauna Galloping Ghosts softball team enters the 2024 WIAA Division 1 playoffs this week as the team to beat for a state championship.

No. 1 seed Kaukauna’s first post-season game will be the Regional Final Thursday at 4:30 p.m. at home.

BRACKETS

The Ghosts face the winner of either No. 8 West De Pere or No. 9 Bay Port, who play Tuesday in the Regional semifinal.

The Ghosts have the longest current winning streak in the nation and are on a 104 game winning streak dating back to May 20, 2021, just a few weeks before winning the first of their current three straight state titles.

(Sign up for our newsletter to keep up with results in your email inbox SIGN UP HERE)

The Ghosts have never lost a state title game, winning the championship in each of their previous state appearances including 2010, 201720212022 and 2023.

Kaukauna is now 8 games behind high school softball’s all-time national win streak record of 112 straight games by Vandebilt Catholic (Houma, La.) between 1980-’83, according to MaxPreps.com.

The total ranks fourth on the all-time list behind Sherwood (Sandy Spring, Md.) with 105 wins in a row from 2012-17 and Barbe (Lake Charles, La.), which won 108 in a row from 1988-91.

The Ghosts will need three wins in the playoffs — Thursday, Tuesday and Thursday — to return to the state tournament.



Paid partnership with StoneRidge Piggly Wiggly.




By Dan Plutchak

Dan Plutchak, born and raised in Kaukauna, is cofounder of Kaukauna Community News.