A new season of girls’ basketball begins tonight for the Washington Demons when they host Muscatine, and you can hear all the action on KCII. Washington is looking to post its first winning record in five years, and the Demons came close last season, starting the season 7-5 before losing eight of their final nine games.

Washington will have most of its starting lineup back, including junior Adalyn Long. After missing those final nine games with injury, the two-time all-Southeast-Conference guard is back and looking to build on a productive sophomore season when she was healthy, leading the team by averaging nearly 12 points and two-and-a-half assists per game.

Kendall Hinrichsen is also back in the backcourt for the Demons after leading the team in total scoring last season and putting up almost eight points and three steals per contest, while fellow senior Lauren Hinrichsen and juniors Addison Miller and Oaklee Sobaski played in almost every game last winter as well.

Head coach Shannon Rugg tells KCII Sports that his core group of players are going to bring their best effort to the hardwood every night.

“They scratch and they claw and they compete,” Rugg says, “and that’s something that we’re always going to do. I just hope that they continue to do that. They’ve done it in practice so far, and now it’s time to get out and play some games and see what we’ve got.”

Class 3A Washington will be taking on a 5A Muscatine team that went 11-11 last season, but one of those wins was a 51-37 victory over the Demons.

You can hear the season tip-off of Washington Demon basketball on KCII this evening on 106.1 FM and streaming on KCIIradio.com and the KCII1 app, starting with pregame coverage at 6:30.