The 2019-20 version of Ladyjacks basketball tips off early Friday morning at 8:30 AM against last year's MonDak champion, Miles CC in the 2nd annual MonDak Pre-Conference Tournament held at 4 Bears Casino in New Town, ND. The game will be livestreamed at this link.
Miles is coming off an incredible 33-1 season and a berth in the NJCAA Division 1 WBB basketball tournament last season. The Ladyjacks, a member of Division 2 of the NJCAA, finished 11-20 in 2018-19. Both teams will have plenty of new faces on their rosters as the Ladyjacks will have 12 newcomers among the 14 listed on their squad.
Sophomores Sydnie Nelson from Bottineau and Taylor Keplin from Belcourt are the Ladyjacks' lone returnees. Nelson started 29 games last year for DCB, averaging 6.1 ppg. Keplin was a valuable member off the bench, scoring 4.2 ppg. The rest of the Ladyjacks are talented, but young and the team will rely on balanced scoring and good defense to qualify for their third NJCAA Division 2 national tournament appearance (qualifying in 2014 and 2017).
From Head Coach Wayne Johnson. "We feel we have accomplished much in our pre-season workouts and have improved considerably over the past few weeks. We are optimistic about the upcoming season and look forward to competing in the MonDak pre-season tournament and non-conference schedule"
After this weekend's tournament, the Ladyjacks will play on the road again at Turtle Mountain CC and in the Lake Region tournament before hosting Canadian Mennonite University and Sisseton Wahpeton College in their home openers on November 15th and 16th as part of the DCB Classic basketball tournament. They will have 3 more home games before Christmas before beginning MonDak Conference play in January. You can find the complete schedule here.
More info on the tournament and brackets can be found at this link.