 It's time for November Madness as the Bemidji State women's soccer team gears up to host the NCAA regional tournament as the two-seed in the central region. Their first-round opponent is a fellow NSIC team, the Minot State Beavers. After Bemidji beat them 3-0 in the regular season, they've picked up their game entering the tournament on an 8-1-1 streak. Things just didn't go their way, and I think they've kind of, you know, buttoned the back down a little bit and got a little tighter in the back, the pass doesn't really matter. We're kind of forgetting about the pass and just trying to prepare for a really good team that's going to come along Friday. They are a very fast team. They have good offense and they counter very well, so we're just going to have to be really good on defense, and then as soon as we get the ball, we got to attack them. It'll be a far cry from the warm weather and the highlights you see here, as a snowy turf and temperatures barely reaching the 20s will surely impact the game. Honestly, the ball is a lot harder. It's hard to catch, so it's just tactically being smart of all my positionings and giving up rebounds will probably be the biggest thing and having our defense be there to help me out. The ball definitely moves a little faster with the snow on there, but being able to practice with it all week, I think we're going to be ready for Friday. While falling last Wednesday in the conference quarterfinals was disappointing, it did give the team its longest break of the season to rest up. We just came into this week. We have an exciting kind of high intensity practice. We're playing quickly and just getting prepared for this this game up coming Friday. The team has higher expectations than last year's first-ever NCAA appearance where they fell to Augustana in penalty kicks. It's special, but in a different way, and I think I think the difference is there's a belief that we can do something in this tournament. And that game will be tomorrow at 2 o'clock, and as the team hopes to fill the stadium, the first 100 BSU students in attendance will get free admission to the game. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.