2005 season preview SDl6Cn Coach Doug Tabbert's comments about the upcoming season: Without question, we look for significant improvement over last year. Hopefully, we will see that early in the season. Our overall talent level is improved and we have depth at some positions for the first time in my tenure, so those things are encouraging. Our biggest challenge will undoubtedly be our youth and our lack of experience. We have to replace four starters from last year. In addition, we have no seniors and only two juniors, so we will actually be younger than we have been in either of the past two seasons. How well our younger players handle themselves will be the biggest determinant of how successful we are. Fortunately, we have some returnees that we think are ready to do some good things for us and we have some incoming players that we feel can contribute right away. We return our top ball-handler from last season in Jennie Malone. She is a solid defensive player and serve receiver, so we will expect her to strongly contribute in those areas. We also need her to be more of a factor attacking, and we will be looking for that. Jen Markoff is more settled in now, so we expect her to be very solid in the setter position. She played very well at the end of our brief spring season, and we look for that to carry over. We also have various other returnees that can significantly help us with ball control and serving if they will embrace the importance of those facets of the game. Several of our incoming players have the ability to significantly contribute right away. Jenny Hiykel is a very solid defensive player that we are excited to have. Tessa Howe gives us depth at the setter position and she can challenge for playing time immediately. We also have several freshmen that bring us improved size and athleticism in the front row. Stephanie Carpio is probably the most ready to play person in that group, but she certainly isn't the only one from which we expect to receive contributions. There are three to four other newcomers that can help us right away. It's basically a question of which of those players most covet the opportunity to play and perform accordingly. With the departure of the University of Mary, Dickinson State would appear to be the favorite to win the conference. They have signed a substantial number of recruits and they should have a significant international presence, so I would expect them to be quite strong. After that, things could get interesting. Several of the higher-finishing teams of last season lost all-conference caliber players, including Dakota State, Jamestown, and Minot State. The incoming recruiting classes that schools have may substantially dictate how the conference race ultimately finishes.
DAC 10 2004 final standings SDTech 2004 Standings University of Mary Dickinson State Dakota State Jamestown College Minot State Si Tanka University @ Huron Black Hills State Mayville State Valley City State South Dakota Tech
DAC-10 12-1 12-1 10-3 8-5 7-6 6-7 5-8 4-9 1-12 0-13
Overall 24-8 19-12 24-10 15-15 12-15 14-16 10-15 9-19 6-18 3-26