The Southwest Lady Bears have already made school history by qualifying for the NJCAA championship basketball tournament for the first time. They will try to make more history Monday night when they take on 6th-ranked Butler (KS) at 8:30 PM in the Bicentennial Center in Salina, KS.

Butler enters the tournament with a 32-2 record. They had a 29-game winning streak snapped last week with a 54-52 loss to Hutchinson (KS) Community College in the finals of the Region VI tournament.

The Lady Grizzlies average 81.6 points per game while allowing 52. They have hit 44.9% of the field goals and 71.8% of their free throws. They are led by Te’era Williams, a 5′ 11″ sophomore forward from Oklahoma City who scores 19.7 points per contest.

Ashly Gibson, a 5′ 10″ freshman forward/guard (Edmond, OK), is scoring 12.9 points per game while Teanna Reid (5′ 6″-freshman-guard-Oklahoma City) picks up 11.5 points per game.

By comparison, the Lady Bears go into the tournament with an overall mark of 21-8. They fell in the Region 23 championship game, 68-57, to Baton Rouge Community College. They are averaging 64.6 points per game and, like Butler, are giving up 52 points.

Leading the way for the Lady Bears are All-Staters Katrina Littlepage and April Levy. Littlepage, a 5′ 6″ sophomore guard from Slidell, LA, scores 16.6 points per contest while Levy (5′ 6″-sophomore-guard-Jackson, MS) scores 12.2.

Southwest’s second-year head coach Brent Harris and his first-year assistant Britta Stephens have spent the past week watching video of and taking in all the information they can on the Lady Grizzlies. Harris said “Butler is very good. They have depth, can score inside and they have several outside threats. They are very athletic and can score lot of points. We will have to get back in transition and guard some nice sets.”

Southwest fans wishing to follow the game can do so by listening to WAKH 105.7FM (K106). It will also be available on the internet at southwestbearathletics.com and k106.net as well as on smart phones (by downloading the k106 app).

As an added bonus, fans can also watch the game live on the internet by going to njcaa.tv.

The complete tournament bracket is available on the Southwest athletics website. It and addition tournament information can also be found at njcaa.org (place your cursor on “sports” and click on “basketball I” under “women’s sports.” Then, click on “national championship.”