Boyceville boys look to improve on basketball court in 2024-2025 season
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THE BOYCEVILLE BOYS’ basketball team lost a lot of experience when six of last year’s members graduated. Just three letter winners return for the Bulldogs who finished 12-13 a year ago including a 6-8 mark in conference play. Front row (L to R): Eli Weber, Dominic Anderson, Tucker Lindstrom, Walter Schaff, Isaac Williams, Donovan Anderson and Gavin Rydel. Back row (L to R): Michael Montgomery, Owen Rydel, Blaine Severson, Jon Madison, Tegan Lydon, Carson Roemhild and Nate Jensen. Not pictured are Beau Dawson, Landon Leslie, and Carson Lindstrom. —photo by Shawn DeWitt
by Marlys Kruger
Sports Correspondent
BOYCEVILLE — After finishing 12-13 overall and 6-8 in Dunn-St. Croix Conference play a year ago. Bulldog head boys’ basketball coach, Colby Dotseth, and his team have set goals this year of playing better than .500 ball and winning their first playoff game since the 2014 season.
“We were not able to achieve every team goal last year but we had a very successful season with a lot of exciting basketball,” he stated. “We did play a lot of competitive basketball with six overtime games and it was the first time since 2001-2002 that the program had double digit wins in back-to-back seasons,” he added.
The Bulldogs will have to replace six players through graduation including their top four leading scorers. Players gone are Devin Halama, who was named second-team all conference while Grant Kaiser was honorable mention all conference, along with Braden Roemhild, Nick Olson, Caden Wold, and Peter Wheeldon. These players had a ton of minutes over four years and were a huge key in turning the program around and becoming competitive in the conference, according to Dotseth.
Players returning are juniors, Carson Roemhild, Jon Madison, and Owen Rydel who are the only three letter winners for the Bulldogs. They all played significant varsity time and will be key leaders in the success Boyceville has as a program and will be relied on to lead the team.
Three freshmen – Tegan Lydon, Tucker Lindstrom, and Gavin Rydel – will have a chance to earn some varsity minutes as they have had a ton of success over the years. Dotseth believes they could potentially work their way into some key minutes on the varsity and will add some depth to the team.
Strengths of the team are their athleticism while their size will help defensively. The Bulldogs (many who are coming off of a semifinal loss in the WIAA Division 7 football playoffs) are very competitive and will buy in and come every night and want to win. However, they will struggle every week to find a true scorer and will have a lot of fresh bodies with not a lot of varsity time and the game will be fast early on, according to Dotseth.
Goals for the team are to continue to compete every night, hopefully pulling off some wins that on paper don’t look like they should win.
“We want to continue to climb the conference standings and play above .500 in the conference this season,” Dotseth stated. “We are also looking at winning our first playoff game in the program since 2014,” he added.
Dotseth begins his sixth year as varsity coach and holds a 33-85 record but his team has gone 24-26 over the past two seasons. He believes Spring Valley, Durand, and Elk Mound will be the top competition in the conference this season because they all bring back some key pieces on their teams and have nice depth.
2024-25 Roster
Seniors: Dominic Anderson, Nathan Jensen, Carson Lindstrom, Michael Montgomery, Blaine Severson.
Juniors: Landyn Leslie, Jon Madison, Carson Roemhild, Owen Rydel, Isaac Williams.
Freshmen: Donovan Anderson, Beau Dawson, Tucker Lindstrom, Tegan Lydon, Gavin Rydel, Walter Schaff, Eli Weber.