2025-2026 State Tournament: Players Making Their Money On Day 2

Today was Day 2 of action of the 2025-2026 High School State Girls Basketball Tournament at the Casey Center in DSM. Throughout the morning and into the mid-afternoon we saw several standout performances of players making a name of themselves on the biggest stage that the state has to offer. In this piece, we speak about some of those prospects.   Thanks for tuning in and enjoy!    Meyer did played an overall efficient game in her team's Round 1 win on Tuesday morning, showing off her D1 capabilities. In the first half she went 6 for 6 from the field, going 2-2 from the behind the arc and 3-3 from the floor on offense. She also defended at a high rate from the Wing position, which was nice to see. I've been very critical of Meyer in the past but today she did a great job of making all of her wide-open attempts, while always making the right play happen on either end of the floor. That will be an ability that will transfer to the floor at UNI next season. In the end, Meyer was the star performer of the game and named game MVP for her efforts. She put together a complete showing and I can't wait to see how she builds on that moving forward this week.     DSM Christian took care of business this morning as they beat Forest City by 6, 52-46, to move onto the 3A Semi's later this week. The main killer for DSM in this contest was SG - [player_tooltip player_id='896069' first='Reese' last='DeVooght']. This big performance isn't anything new for DeVooght. Last round she put up some more big numbers to help her team get to this point in general and today, she registered a game high 23 points and 6 rebounds to lead the way. These attempts came from all over the floor. 9 of those attempts were from three point land while the rest were from two. She also happened to go 6-6 from the charity stripe, showing her ability to get to the line and convert when need be. All in all, DeVooght is still uncommitted for her future at the next level but I'm sure this performance is going to help her bring in some more interest before she is finally committed somewhere.     [player_tooltip player_id='883552' first='Braylyn' last='Birmingham'] of Norwalk is as good as advertised. A D1 level prospects with length, crafty ability offensively, and natural instincts on both offense and defense. Slowing down Birmingham is tough enough, stopping her completely is almost impossible for any team and we saw that today in their Round 1 matchup against Central DeWitt. BB was running the team's offense, getting everyone set up, and making plays on almost every possession as a creator in general while being double teamed in certain situations. When Norwalk is at full strength and playing their best ball, so is Birmingham. Now we just have to wait and see how this group builds on all of this moving into the Semi's.     Forest City might have fallen short in their battle this morning against DSM Christian but that's not due to lack of effort. The biggest producer for this group was [player_tooltip player_id='1091996' first='Jenna' last='Dontje'] out of the Post. Dontje wasn't just good, she was great. In general she scored a team high 21 points on 9-13 shooting, she grabbed 13 rebounds, along with 4 steals and 1 block out of the middle. This was the source for the Indians since they only went 3-18 from behind the three point arc with their shooters. Defensively, Dontje stepped up several times to cause chaos in between the blocks. She was someone that was sitting there waiting for her opportunities to alter/deflect any type of shot attempt out of the middle and she did just that. This was Dontje's last game of her high school career but not her basketball career in general. She will get the opportunity to show her worth for 4-5 more years at the collegiate level. As long as she continues to work moving into that situation, she should continue to get better with time/experience.     [player_tooltip player_id='1194333' first='Addy' last='Oetker'] is PG #1 for DSM Christian. She might not of been her team's top scoring threat in their first round matchup but she did everything else as a top-notch orchestrator. Oetker set up the team's systems on both sides of the floor, she controlled the pace of play of the game as a whole, she made the most of her opportunities when they present themselves, and she was always one of the first on the floor or into the crowd for loose balls when it was poked free. When you combined all this together with someone who just wants to win, you get a high-end competitor who produces results in one way or another whenever they compete. That's what we saw today out of Oetker in her team's victory and I'm hoping we can see that even more as the week goes on.

Today was Day 2 of action of the 2025-2026 High School State Girls Basketball Tournament at the Casey Center in DSM. Throughout the morning and into the mid-afternoon we saw several standout performances of players making a name of themselves on the biggest stage that the state has to offer. In this piece, we speak about some of those prospects.