The four-time defending state champion Dike-New Hartford girls basketball team will begin a new season by hosting Decorah Tuesday in non-conference action. It’ll be the first game under new head coach Matt Dove.
Two starters are back from last year’s team that went 26-2, including Payton Foster and Madde Buskohl. The roster includes two other regular rotation players from that team, but they’ll need to replace most of the offensive production. Dove is excited to see how the work of preseason practices will translate to a game.
“They’ve got a couple of really nice players returning from a good team last year,” Dove says. “They have a new coach this year, but I believe he had some success when he was at South Winneshiek. So he already has more experience than our head coach does. Number 21, she is a very good player. Will be one of the best players that we might see all year during the regular season. So we’ll have our work cut out for sure, but again, excited for our players. They’ve been doing the things we’ve been asking for the last couple of weeks, and our goal here is to continue to keep learning, and you do that by putting yourself in situations to learn. So, looking forward to it.”
Decorah will return three starters from last year’s 15-8 season, including double digit per game scorers Claire Storhoff and Brooklyn Fromm.
The tipoff will be at 7:45 p.m.
