Small school, gigantic success
Dike-New Hartford’s dual runs in basketball and volleyball might be unmatched in state history
In the end, it won’t be an arch rival or a school with a thousand more students that closes the curtain on an amazing run for the senior girl athletes at Dike-New Hartford.
It will simply be time.
Time to graduate. Time to move on. Time to figure out what to do with the pile of pink T-shirts they get as championship swag at state tournaments.
Time, one day down the road, to sit back and simply say, “Wow.”
One way or another part of that run will end next week at the Iowa Girls State Basketball Tournament. The Wolverines will try for their fourth consecutive Class 2A state championship. It would be the first “four-peat” since the Ankeny girls did it in 2002-2005.
But it’s not the basketball run that has made this a time of eye-popping success at the school of 210 students just west of Cedar Falls/Waterloo. The Wolverines have also won three state volleyball titles in the era of the Class of 2024 and did so in an absolutely dominating fashion. They were 181-3 over their four seasons, including 50-0 last fall.
If that weren’t enough, DNH girls have gone to state in soccer, as well as earning spots in the state golf golf and track meets.
So, is there something special in the water in Dike or New Hartford? A magic potion in either Beaver or Black Hawk creeks?
“We hear that a lot,” Athletic Director Cody Eichmeier said with a laugh. “Really, it’s special people, from parents to coaches to kids. It’s a unique combination right now that is really fun to watch. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Some of the school’s success is not unprecedented. Dike was a volleyball power even before it merged with New Hartford in 1996, and now has won 16 state titles. Northern Iowa Coach Bobbi (Becker) Petersen was a star for Dike and UNI, and her twins Payton and Jadyn are part of the current Wolverine senior class that has had so much success.
Basketball is a newer Wolverine success story, with strong seasons that began in the era of two other Petersen twins, Baylee and Sidney, who graduated in 2017.
“When I took this job I knew it was a volleyball community, but I wanted to help the community I graduated from,” said basketball coach Bruce Dall, a Dike alum who returned to his alma mater in 2012. “I always joke that Dike-New Hartford basketball has produced more Division I volleyball players than any school in the nation. And my point with that is that they stay out for basketball. A lot of kids at other schools might specialize in one sport but here they stay out (for other sports).”
The coaches cooperate so the kids don’t have to make a tough choice, and coaches say that’s one secret to the school’s athletic success.
“Most of our kids are at least three-sport athletes with several four-sport athletes,” said volleyball coach Diane Harms. “Our coaches work so well together. We know we have to use the same athletes to be successful, so we try not to do things that are going to inhibit another sport.”
That’s a key element the players believe leads to their success, too.
“We all play multiple sports,” said Maryn Bixby, who besides being a basketball and volleyball player finished 16th at the state golf meet last season. “We hang out all the time, even off the court or in whatever sport we are in. The friendships are what really help us.”
Payton Petersen, who will head to national power Louisville to play volleyball next season, agreed.
“It’s nice to have people on the court who understand you as a player or a person,” she said. “There are times we know what the other one needs and how to respond to that. It’s special that we have that bond.”
The bond formed early. AAU volleyball begins in fourth grade, with Harms and her husband, Lawrence, teaching kids the basics.
“We just teach them the way it’s going to be,” she said. “It’s not pretty in fourth grade, but they’re learning how they will play when they get to high school.”
Dike-New Hartford basketball success began while the current seniors were still in grade school. The Wolverines made it to state three years in a row before COVID-19 hit just after the 2020 tournament. While it didn’t wipe out any seasons, it did put a pause on what Dall could see in his future teams after graduation hit the Wolverines hard.
“We weren’t allowed to do anything that summer and then they gave us three days in July to work with them, with masks on, and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, these girls are good,’” he said. “We thought we had something special here but we didn’t know how special.”
And while basketball has the potential for the four-peat, it’s in volleyball that this group of seniors led a run that might just be the best in state history. The Wolverines’ 50-0 record included victories over 5A state champ Waukee Northwest and runner-up Dowling Catholic. They beat 3A runner-up Mount Vernon three times. They lost just one set all season, to Dowling.
Payton Petersen is one of three members of that team who will play Division I volleyball. Her sister Jadyn will play at UNI, as will Bixby. The Petersens’ older sisters Baylee and Sidney also played at UNI, with Sidney transferring there for her fifth season after being a member of Texas’ national runner-up team.
While these seniors will graduate soon, and the Petersens have no more twins heading to high school, don’t expect Dike-New Hartford to disappear from the state tournaments – in any sport. After all, whatever’s in the water in Dike and New Hartford will still be there for years to come.
“Everybody who has had a positive effect on those kids, who has steered them in the right direction, can take credit for this,” Dall said. “We’ve just been blessed with great kids, great parents, great community, great everything.”
The Iowa Girls State Basketball Tournament begins Monday, Feb. 26, at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines. All early round games will be streamed live on IGHSAU’s YouTube channel while Friday and Saturday’s championship games will be shown live on Iowa PBS.
Find a link to the state tournament brackets and schedule here.
Writer alert: My good friend Daniel P. Finney has joined the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Dan was a longtime columnist at the Des Moines Register but here’s some trivia: Before he joined the Register full-time after graduating from Drake, he was a sports writer and sports editor of the Times-Delphic student newspaper. He’s an enthusiastic supporter and advocate of women’s sports, and possibly the biggest Lisa Bluder fan on the planet. Dan writes this week about Drake football legend Johnny Bright, whose career as a well-regarded educator is an underappreciated piece of his legacy. Find Dan at The Paragraph Stacker.
Jane Burns is a former sports and features writer for the Des Moines Register, as well as other publications and websites. Over the course of her career she’s covered pretty much everything, which is why her as-yet-to-be-written memoir will be called “Cheese and Basketball: Stories From a Reporter Who Has Covered Everything.”
Iowa Writers’ Collaborative
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Glad you outlined the Becker/Petersen clan's deep roots in Dike and Dike-NewHartford volleyballs success. Bobbi also has sisters who played.
Also, in addition to Coach Bluder heading up the Drake women's program before going to Iowa City, she is a member of the UNI Athletics Hall of Fame. Kinda sorta like Coach Gable wrestling for that school 130 miles west of Iowa City that wears Cardinal and Gold and is named for a meteorological event (no, not the Simpson Storm, go a little further north up I-35) before becoming Hawkeye wrestling coach. The U of I's sister institutions have made big contributions to Hawkeye athletic success.