BRODHEAD — The Cardinals lose five players from its conference championship team last season — including MVP first-team all-conference Kiarra Moe — but head coach Brian Kammerer is confident his team will be competitive.

“With a huge void to graduation, we still return a good nucleus of players from last year’s conference championship team,” Kammerer said. “I will expect this team to compete night in and night out with the teams we face in a top conference and non-conference schedule.”

The core of his team that returns includes seniors Abbie Dix, Alexis Kammerer and Taetum Hoesly and juniors Addison Yates, Jaelyn Hilliard, Onnikah Williams and Paityn Kail.

Dix, a first-team all-conference selection, led the team last year with 14.5 points and 11.8 rebounds per game. She also averaged 2.1 steals per game behind 2022 graduate Moe. Yates also received all-conference recognition on the honorable mention squad. She averaged 7.2 points, 1.9 assists and 4.5 rebounds per game. Alexis Kammerer led the team in assists with an average of 2.4 per game.

These three come off a successful volleyball season (33-5, 8-1) and will carry their hard work ethic over to basketball.

“We return kids that are not afraid of competition and have been involved with many different sports, and know how hard we have to work to be competitive,” Brian Kammerer said.

Despite the experience, Brodhead will need to fill Onnikah Oliver’s defensive role, as she made all-conference honorable mention with 28 defensive rebounds and 23 steals.

“Team depth may be a challenge with the five we lost last year, and will look to see who will be our shut-down defensive player with the loss of Onnikah Oliver last year,” Brian Kammerer said.

McFarland and Jefferson have Division I-bound players in Teagan Mallegni and Ayianna Johnson, respectively, and will also contend for the Rock Valley title. Last season they finished tied for third with 12-6 records.