The WACO Warriors have become one of the most consistently excellent boys’ basketball teams in southeast Iowa. Last year’s 18-6 record was the third straight season and the fifth time in the last six years that WACO won at least 17 games. But there will be some changes as a new season draws near.

In addition to having to replace four starters and their three leading scorers from a year ago, the Warriors will have a new head coach in former assistant Chayse Roth.

WACO does bring back guard Isaac Rich, who averaged over six points, two-and-a-half assists and two steals per game as a starter last season, while fellow senior Joel Meyer and sophomore Isaac Egli have experience coming off the bench.

While much of the roster is working to get acclimated to more involved roles, Roth tells KCII Sports that his team is shooting to be the best that they can be and hopefully translate that into remaining one of the area’s best.

“The past few years, we’ve been pretty fortunate to be in that top two in the North division and go down to Southeastern [Community College] and play in the [Southeast Iowa] Super Conference Shootout,” Roth says.

“We’re going to be pretty young [and] there’s a lot of kids that don’t have a lot of experience, so obviously the goal is just getting better game by game, but I would say the big [goal] is we want to get into that top two of the North.”

The Warriors play their first boys’ basketball game of a new season December 2nd at Holy Trinity Catholic.