The Bemidji girls basketball team becomes the eighth winter unit to start post season play when it hosts Brainerd tonight at 7 at the field house.
Only the boys cagers, who start their playoffs March 9, have yet to begin post season action.
The girls drew the No. 3 seed and will go against the sixth seeded Warriors.
Other first round games tonight send No. 8 Alexandria to No. 1 St. Cloud Tech, No. 7 Buffalo to No. 2 Moorhead and No. 5 Elk River to No. 4 Apollo.
The semifinals are set for Saturday at Wadena with the final March 10 at St. John's University.
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It will be the second meeting for Bemidji and Brainerd. Bemidji pulled out the first meeting 51-45 at Brainerd after trailing 23-20 at halftime.
It was a game Bemidji perhaps didn't deserve to win according to coach Tim Mayclin, but found a way down the stretch to pull out a victory.
Brianna Pfremmer led the way that night with 16 while Brittany Mayclin added 12.
Ashley Erickson scored all of her eight points in the opening half to keep Bemidji in contention and Liz Judkins made two key lay-ups down the stretch to keep Bemidji ahead.
Mayclin also grabbed 10 rebounds while Lindsey Gullickson had eight.
Mayclin had seven assists and Carma Huseby four steals.
That quintet is likely to open tonight with Gullickson, Pfremmer and Judkins across the front line backed by Erickson and Megan Larson while Mayclin and Huseby will patrol the perimeter backed by Lexi Gauwitz and Meg Claypool.
The Brainerd win raised Bemidji to 11-3 that night.
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But since then the team has struggled, going 4-6 down the stretch to end at 15-9.
Four of the setbacks came by 2-3-4-7 points. In almost every case, far too frequent turnovers were the major source of the trouble.
Bemidji had 29 in the recent loss to Detroit Lakes and 20 in the last loss to Grand Rapids and has normally surrendered possession 20-30 times a night.
To do so tonight would be highly risky.
The Warriors are 8-17 this year and finished 6-14 in the CLC to finish seventh. Late victories over Alexandria and Sauk Rapids rescued them from ninth place.
Kayla Huether is the top weapon. She hit 17 in the first meeting and has been consistently in double figures all season. Bemidji will need to concentrate on preventing her from getting the ball to up its chances of winning.
Pfremmer and Mayclin remain the team's top gunners, Pfremmer with 334 points (14.5 ppg) while Mayclin has 245, just over 10.
But Gullickson and Judkins have each reached double figures eight times, Gauwitz and Erickson three and Huseby two.
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The late season improvement of sophomores Erickson and Gauwitz and freshmen Claypool and Larson has bolstered the team's depth.
Tonight's winner will face the Moorhead-Buffalo winner while Tech or Alex will take on Apollo or Elk River.
