2004

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Northwest men, E. Central • No. 4 Rangers begin journey at 5 p.m. today; Lady Warriors tip at 2 p.m. By•• Clvietensen mc:hrlttenMII®clwlonledger.com spots and they've got two groups ofthose." Meanwhile, in nearby Salina, Kan., East Central Community College's Lady Warriors, 29-2 and ranked 17th, take onThree Rivers (Mo.) CC, today at 2 p.m. in the BicentennialCenter. throughMarch 20. East Central does have some size, for a juco women's team, to throw at Three Rivers, 26-5 and champion of Region 16.

Hodge starts 6-1 sophomo.re Lenore Gray and &-0 soph Kimyat– ta Viverette. Point guard Kristen Chaney was an All-State pick as a freshman. ECCC's last trip to the national tourney was in 2001, when Hodge was an assistant toSammyPace. The lastMississippi teamtowin a national title was Northeast's 1986-87 women's team, which went 34-0with a lineup that includ– ed five future Division I players. Mississippi jucos have more stringent recruiting rules than most other states. For one, Mis-

Size matters in basketball. Just how much Northwest Mississippi CommunityCollege could find out in its first-round game in the NJCAA Tournament at Hutchin– son,Kan. Northwest, 27-3 and ranked No. 4 in the country, meets Midland (Texas) College today at 5 p.m. in theHutchinsonSportsArena. "They're big for a juco team," Northwest coach Don "Bubba" Skelton said ofMidland. "Theygo &-(feet)-7 and up at the 3, 4 and 5

Both Northwest and ECCC earned their trips by winning Region 23 championships at Clin– ton twoweeks ago. . The Lady Warriors, in Brad Hodge's third season as head coach, managed the impressive feat of winning both the state and region tournaments, requiring six victories in a lG-day stretch. The NJCAA tourney can be just as demanding. It's a 1&-team, dou– ble-elimination affair that runs