After advancing to the Sweet 16 last season and the Elite 8 the year before, Dixon boasts as much experience this season as it has in a long time.

Five seniors and a pair of juniors return to the main rotation for the Duchesses, and the roster has a total of 10 upperclassmen. It means a lot of veteran leadership and team chemistry in addition to talent.

“We’ve been playing together since first grade, so that team chemistry has definitely helped,” senior Addy Lohse said. “We all know how to work with each other, what our strengths are and what we can do to help our team.”

“We’ve got a lot of kids that have spent a lot of time on the court with one another and know what’s expected of them and what we expect day in and day out,” coach Luke Ravlin said. “So we’re in a good spot in terms of experience.”

What Dixon lost over the offseason was its size. Two of the three seniors last year were posts Hallie Williamson and Makenzie Toms, who provided the muscle and rebounding on the interior.

The Duchesses are off to a 5-0 start.

“This year is different than any of the years prior due to having no posts. But I think it’s also fun,” senior Reese Dambman said. “This is what we want to do: we want to be a run-and-gun team, we want to shoot 3s, we want to be up in their faces [defensively]. This is exactly what we want. So, especially with this group of all guards, it’s easy to work together and help each other along the way.”

That doesn’t mean Dixon won’t try to exploit the post when it can. Every perimeter player has also spent time this offseason working on their post presence, and scoring inside will still be something the Duchesses look to do.

It may just look different. Instead of a back-to-the-basket spin move, it might be an aggressive drive to the hoop and pass to a cutting teammate.

“It’s definitely going to be challenging because we don’t have big players at all – we’re all guard/posts – but we’re doing a good job of figuring out our inside game and finding our strengths and working on our moves on the inside, and driving, attacking and rebounding, all of those things,” Lohse said.

“It’ll be different,” Ravlin said. “We’re definitely going to go faster, definitely have to push the tempo a little bit more, and I think the kids like playing that way, so it makes it fun.”

One thing that won’t change is Dixon’s focus on defense. Expect the same tough man-to-man and zone defenses the Duchesses have played in the past, paying particular attention to perimeter pressure to limit the opposition’s ability to pass the ball inside.

“It all starts with defense no matter what, so we know that’s the end where we hang our hat, we know we’ve got to step up each and every game in that regard,” Ravlin said.

Plus, playing strong defense can turn into an efficient, effective offense.

“We want to get stops on defense because that equals us getting that chance to convert on offense,” Dambman said. “That’s our big thing: we want to be able to play hard and play fast and convert that into strong play on both offense and defense.”

The biggest asset the Duchesses have is their experience. Dambman, Morgan Hargrave and Ahmyrie McGowan were all key pieces in Dixon’s run to a 3A supersectional in 2024, and they were joined by Lohse, Presley Lappin, Kiley Gaither and Abby Hicks in the main rotation for last year’s run to a 3A sectional final.

Ravlin feels the hunger from his players to make another deep run, and they want to make the most of their final season together as a unit before the six-member senior class hangs it up.

“We definitely want to do it again, get that feeling again,” Lohse said. “That’s definitely our goal and what we’re striving for this season.”

Dambman agrees with that sentiment about the playoffs, but she has another item on the agenda before the calendar turns to 2026.

“I think a successful season starts with our own Christmas tournament,” she said. “I know in years past we’ve struggled in that, but I think this year we can get it done. I really want to win it, that’s one of my goals, and it has been since my freshman year.

“Other than that, we want to go farther in the postseason than we did last year, and I think this year we definitely have a chance to be better and always just keep growing and striving for more.”