DSU Slated for a Full Opening Night of Basketball (Women’s Preview)

The 2012-2013 Lady T’s will start the season with a new coach and a new system. Coach Jeff Dittman, coming back to DSU to coach the Lady Trojans, will return 7 starters from last year’s team and will have a total of 20 players on this year’s roster. The team consists of: seniors Yui Onodera, Toni Zirbel, and Brittany Rosberg; Juniors Kylie Westover, Julie Munson, Courtney Hamblin, Cassie Jacobson, and Alyson Drooger; Sophomores Jaynie Spier, Jayda Swenson, Sharee Galbraith, Rachel Novak, Katy Pillar, and Annalesha Kalis; and Freshmen Courtney Hulstein, Kendra Lindblad, Bailey Bruns, Emily Fedders, Haley Stover, and Brooke Relf.

I interviewed Head Coach Jeff Dittman about the upcoming season.

Question: How do you feel about the upcoming season?
Dittman: I feel like we have a very difficult season, we have five Division I games, we have a number of top 20 NAIA programs and so we have a lot of work to do to be competitive with it.

Question: What do you think will be the greatest strength?
Dittman: I think our shooting will our best strength, we have a team that can score both inside and outside.

Question: Describe something that may need improvements as the season goes on.
Dittman: We will continually be working on our defense; I say this because we have so many talented teams on our schedule that it will be very challenging to slow them down.

Question: What do you feel will be the biggest surprise of the season?
Dittman: Haha, If I knew that Taylor then it wouldn’t be a surprise! What I hope will be the biggest surprise will be how we come together as a team and how we accept the challenges of our hard schedule. With the newness of having a new head coach, a new system, and new terminology; I hope that will be the biggest surprise. If not we will have a difficult year.

Question: Any other thoughts?
Dittman: I’m looking forward to returning to DSU, I enjoyed the 19 years I was here and I hope the next 19 years are just as fun.

The women will start their season November 1st against Oglala Lakota at 5:30 at the Field House.

Featured photo provided by DSU Athletics