Tuesday’s start to the Class 4A Iowa State Softball Tournament marks the 12th time Adel-Desoto-Minburn Tigers head coach Rick Dillinger has brought a team to Fort Dodge. His previous 11 trips to the Roger Sports Complex was as the head coach of the North Polk Comets, winning three total state championships. Dillinger coached 31 seasons with North Polk before taking over the ADM program in 2014. Both Dillinger and ADM are returning to state for the first time since 2008; ADM finished the season tied for fifth place in the Class 3A tournament, while Dillinger won the Class 2A state championship, the last of his three state titles. Dillinger shared with Raccoon Valley Radio his knowledge of what it takes to be successful in Fort Dodge. “The big thing is you can’t be intimidated by the moment,” Dillinger said, “If we go up and have fun we’re going to be fine. Games at the state tournament are not won, a lot of times they’re lost. Meaning a team will have a couple of errors, a team will freeze while they’re hitting, there are all types of things.”

ADM enters the state tournament as the No. 1 seed and will face the Dallas Center-Grimes Fillies in the quarterfinal game Tuesday at 1 p.m. The Raccoon Valley Radio Network will provide live play-by-play coverage of the Tigers trip throughout the state tournament on True Country K 107.9, raccoonvalleyradio.com, and the KKRF mobile app.