West Region Challenge 2015ARCATA, Calif. – Humboldt State's women's basketball season opens at Lumberjack Arena for the first time since 2006. After visiting Fresno Pacific and Seattle Pacific over the last two seasons, the West Region Challenge comes to Humboldt County. Western Washington closes out the elite field, joining HSU, FPU, and SPU.
"It doesn't get any tougher these next few weeks," said Head Coach
Joddie Gleason. "I think our strength of schedule can't get any higher than this weekend, and we're excited."
The West Region Challenge brings together four programs, from three west region conferences, for four games over two days to start the new season. Three of this year's teams, Humboldt State, Seattle Pacific, and Western Washington, each compiled over 20 wins in 2014-15. The Jacks and Falcons earned berths in the NCAA Tournament last year, and it was Seattle Pacific that took down the Green and Gold in the rematch.
This year's competition opens on Friday afternoon with the 3:30 p.m. matchup between Western Washington and Fresno Pacific, followed by the nightcap with the hosts facing off against Seattle Pacific. SPU accounted for two of the six HSU losses from last year's California Collegiate Athletic Association regular season co-champions.
Saturday's matches pair Fresno Pacific and Seattle Pacific at 1 p.m., followed by Western Washington at Humboldt.
At the conclusion of the final game, an All-Tournament team will be named featuring the top-5 performers.
"These games do matter so much down the stretch," said Gleason. "We don't get a chance to play a lot of teams from out of conference, because our conference is so big. We play 20 conference games, so we try to schedule very hard, and hopefully these games will prepare us because our conference and our region is so tough."
The complete schedule and tournament details are available on the "West Region Challenge 2015" tab at the top of the women's basketball page on HSUJacks.com. Game tickets purchased are good for the pair of games on the listed date.
