If there's one thing you can say about Freedom's new girls basketball coach Dean Reiman, it's that he's excited for the opportunity to become apart of the Freedom family.

Reiman will take over for the departed Ron Garza, who led last year's team to a 6-16 mark.

After coaching at Bethlehem Catholic on the boys side as an assistant for two years, Reiman has been the boss of the Palisades' girls program for the past five years, rebuilding the program from a 1-21 mark his first season into back-to-back District 11 2A qualifiers the past two seasons, going 26-21 over that span.

Moving from the Colonial League to the East Penn Conference will be a challenge in itself for Reiman, who takes over a young Patriots team.

"The opportunity to build another program at a great school, a 4A school, that plays in a great conference and has great facilities to support the program were attractive," said Reiman about his thought process to go for the Freedom job. "The opportunity to become part of the Freedom family and to build new and lasting relationships with the student athletes was important too."

Freedom hasn't made the district playoffs since the 2009-10 season and getting the Pates back into the playoffs is one of the goals for Reiman. Getting to work with his new group of players is now a priority for him as they head into the summer.

"I know we have a young team returning so getting in the gym as soon as possible will be very important to teach the way we will play," he said. "We will be starting open gyms and will then play as much as possible this summer to get to know each other. I look forward to competing against great programs from larger schools on a regular basis."

Now that Reiman is in charge, it's all about learning his new personnel and instilling his philosophies.

"It will be a process to learn what we have in the program currently and build around that current skill set," said Reiman. "No matter what, we will want the kids to play hard and with passion while showing nothing but respect to the game, our opponent, officials and each other."