COLBY, Kan. – After winning a share of the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference Division 1 Women’s Basketball regular season title and NJCAA Region 6 Tournament crown last year, the Dodge City Community College women’s basketball team has been picked to win the 2025-26 KJCCC D1 Women’s Basketball Predicted Order of Finish poll.

With first-place votes split among the six-highest finishing teams in the preseason poll, the Conquistadors edged out Hutchinson by securing 153 total points while seeing the Blue Dragons pick up 149 total points in the poll. Both Dodge City and Hutchinson earned three first-place votes each, as both schools advanced to the NJCAA D1 Women’s Basketball National Tournament last season after sharing the 2024-25 KJCCC D1 Women’s Basketball regular season title. Also earning three first-place votes in the preseason poll was third-place Coffeyville, as the Red Ravens earned 143 total points and are coming off a 26-6 overall record last year that ended in the NJCAA Region 6 Tournament Championship game at the hands of Dodge City.

Other teams to earn first-place votes in the preseason poll were fourth-place Butler (139 points, two first-place votes), fifth-place Garden City (103 points, one first-place vote), and sixth-place Cowley (98 points, one first-place vote), as the season once again is gearing up to feature a number of teams that could vie for a conference crown. Butler advanced to the NJCAA Region 6 Tournament semifinals last year and finished with a 23-8 overall record, while Cowley led all KJCCC D1 women’s basketball teams in scoring average (80.0 points per game) in 2024-25. The Broncbusters are looking to bounce back from last year’s 10th-place finish in the KJCCC under third-year head coach Greg Franklin, who enters the season with a career coaching record of 425-116, which includes six NJCAA National Tournament appearances and the 2015 NJCAA D1 Women’s Basketball National Championship at Chipola College.

Following Cowley in the preseason poll was Seward County (94 points), Barton (93 points), and both Cloud County and Colby with 62 points each while the bottom three of the preseason poll saw Independence (33 points), Pratt (31 points), and Fort Hays Tech Northwest (23) round out the 13-team league selections.

The 2025-26 women’s basketball season will get underway on Friday, October 1st, with seven of the 13 league teams in action on the opening day of the season. In total, 20 games will take place involving league teams over the opening weekend of the season, as teams will have the first two-plus weeks of the regular season to compete in non-conference matchups before seeing a 24-game KJCCC schedule kickoff on Wednesday, November 19, with six matchups between conference schools.  

After wrapping up the regular season on Wednesday, March 4th, postseason play will begin on Saturday, March 7th, as the top four teams in the final regular season standings will receive a first-round bye in the NJCAA Region 6 Tournament. Teams that finish fifth through eighth will host teams that finish ninth through 12th in the regular season standings with the winners moving on to face the four teams that received byes on Tuesday, March 10th with the winners of the four quarterfinal round matches advancing to “Championship Weekend”. The semifinals and finals are scheduled to take place March 13-14 at a yet to be determined KJCCC campus site, with the NJCAA Division 1 Women’s Basketball National Tournament scheduled for March 24-31, 2026, in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Preseason interviews with the head coaches of teams picked to finish 1-4 in the poll (Landon Steele – Dodge City, John Ontjes – Hutchinson, Tony Turner – Coffeyville, and Mike Helmer – Butler) will be released next week in the days leading up to the start of the regular season, with former Barton Community College play-by-play broadcaster Cole Rief conducting the interviews. Be sure to keep an eye on the KJCCC website (www.kjccc.org) and social media pages (Facebook, X) to view each interview as they are released.