Sioux Falls Christian enters the girls state tournament with a 20-2 record. We spoke to Coach Dan DeJong about the upcoming tournament.
What can you say about your squad this season?
Yeah, I would just say expectations have changed so much throughout the season. I just love how our girls have bought into their role and different girls have been stepping up for us on different nights. We’re a very balanced team and never worry about who’s going to be scoring. They just know that someone is going to step up for us.
You guys had a terrific start to the season, just taking dubs right and left. What can you say about that early run especially against some good squads?
Our schedule was really difficult this year. We just kind of took it one game at a time. We just continued to go and learn, and one big thing we talked about throughout the whole season was getting 1% better every single day at practice.
You know and just continue to just work on us and get us better. Our girls really bought into that and we just had great practices throughout this whole season and it started off with us just competing everyday in practice and it’s been fun to see how far they’ve come this year.
With that 1%, is that sort of your team motto, or what is your philosophy that you guys have had this season?
Yeah, every single day, we’ve been talking about it all year, just getting 1% better. You know, we talk a lot about being 100% all the time, something will work out in the end. And just one of our things, we want to play hard, we want to compete and we want to stick together and our girls have really bought into that.
What can you say about your guys’ postseason run? Obviously, you guys have faced some good teams, what can you say about those games preparing you for the SoDak 16?
Our team has played a lot of difficult teams. We played, besides us, four of the seven teams that made it to the state tournament this year. So we’ve been tested throughout this year.
We play in the Dak XII which is always a tough conference, you know. So it’s one of those things where our girls have been playing in big games and they just kind of take it one step at a time and they prep and they buy in. And they really have been executing their role, which is what we are trying to do every single night. And it’s fun to be able to see that.
Yeah, you guys also have a few seniors on roster, what can you say about their leadership but also the junior class having to step up and fill some of those roles?
Yeah, we graduated five great seniors last year, so we knew we had to step up and have different roles with our team coming into this year. Jaxsyn Swift has been starting for three years for us; she owns the record for threes made in a game, threes made in a season and threes made in a career…So she’s been in a lot of those moments. She’s been to four state tournaments for us, so she has a lot of experience. She knows how it’s going to be for us.
You know, we play a senior, we play four juniors, we play a couple sophomores, a couple freshmen, so we are very, very balanced, years wise. Hopefully, some of our juniors who have had experience at the state tournament with Maya Nelson and Katie Vander Leest and Avery Reitz, will be able to step up and be a little comfortable going into this field to make a run.
Now on the court, what would you say is your guys’ name to your game? What’s your style that’s been successful this season?
We’re going to get up there and we’re going to press. We’re going to get up and get into your face and use our speed and our pressure to help us. Hopefully that helps us generate on offense as well. The girls have really bought in to getting up every single made basket, getting into our press, and just playing fast and physical.
You know, we’re not the tallest team out there, our tallest starter is only 5’9. So we have been able to play more up-tempo and get up and down every single time that we can. And this year took the next step into our press. Our C and JV coaches do a great job of prepping our younger girls so we run that same system throughout all three levels of our team.
So it’s really nice having some continuity into our press and into our style.
Last year, you guys obviously made the state tournament. You finished 5th place, how do you think that experience will help you going into this season’s tourney?
Our girls know what to expect a little bit. Obviously we don’t have a ton of real experience of playing. Swift played a lot of minutes. Nelson and Vanderleest played a lot of minutes. But other than that, we graduated all of our experience.
We’ve had a lot of girls on the team that have seen it and they have seen how we have prepared for it. And I know we’ve prepared for it and we will be ready to go.
Yeah, you talked about how Swift has played in four state tournaments. For you as a coach, how has this team and this state tournament felt different than the previous ones?
It’s just so different, you know. We usually just kind of have our studs or just kind of our girl that we can go to when times are getting tough and like I said we’re just so balanced in our scoring.
It’s been fun you know. We have a lot of girls averaging between seven to twelve points per game so a different girl’s going to be able to step up on different nights. You know we really identify matchups and who we can be able to attack and how we can get points on the board. So that’s always just fun to be able to do.
You know it’s hard for teams to put, quote unquote, “their best defender”, on a certain girl for us because we’ll just have our next girl step up. So that’s always fun but it’s different for us this year.
I think it’s really wide open. I think all eight teams could seriously win this thing.
Last year you looked at Hamlin and you looked at Wagner and those two teams were a step above everybody else. and we knew that those teams were going to be kind of probably in that championship game but I think this year I think it’s really wide open.
There’s just really good teams at the state tournament and it’s going to be whoever can get hot for three days that could be able to win this thing.
Yeah and one final question. Obviously Brookings, Dacotah Bank Center, it’s going to be a lot of excitement. What are you going to tell your girls coming into that very first game?
Just to go out there, stick together and have fun. We play so much better when we’re having fun out there and just not worrying about anything else; just go out there play like we normally play.
You know one of our things is we play hard. So continue to be able to play hard. You can’t control when your shots fall or don’t fall but one thing [we can control] is to just stick together in our defense and how hard you can play…So that’s how we’re going to create points for us, and just to be able to come out there and play free and play lose and have fun.
This article is our part of our coaches’ interview series presented by The Move Group. To see the complete list, check out our website below.
Looking to buy or sell your home? With a consistent track record of success, The Move Group has the knowledge and drive to help with your real estate needs. Check out their website here.
Follow along for more coverage of the girls basketball season on our:
Twitter (@DigitalZSD)
Facebook (Digital Z SD)
Instagram (Digital Z Sports)
Website (Digitalzsports.com)
