KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The University of St. Francis women's basketball team will be seeking to go to the upper northwest part of Iowa on back-to-back weekends after it learned its bracket positioning in the 64-team NAIA National Tournament Opening Round on Thursday night.  The Saints (24-7) will compete in the Sioux Center Bracket of the Naismith Quadrant, which will be hosted by NAIA top-ranked Dordt University next Friday and Saturday (March 14-15).

Sioux City, just 45 miles south of Sioux Center, is host to the NAIA National Tournament Final Site, which will take place March 20-25 at the Tyson Events Center.  USF is very familiar with that venue having made seven consecutive appearances (2016-2022) to the tournament. The winners of each of the 16 four-team brackets advance to the Final Site.

Head coach John McGinty's club is the No. 2 seed in the four-team Sioux Center Bracket and will square off against No. 3 seed Rocky Mountain College (Mont.) (20-10) at 7:30 pm on Friday.  Both the Fighting Saints and Battlin' Bears earned their bids by securing two of the 29 at-large berths.

Top-seeded and defending national champion Dordt (29-2) will host No. 4 seed Haskell Indian Nations University (Kan.) (11-13) in the 5:30 pm game on Friday.  Dordt gained its Opening Round bid by winning the Great Plains Athletic Conference regular season and tournament titles, while Haskell Indian Nations claimed the Continental Athletic Conference tournament crown.

The winners of Friday's contests advance to Saturday's 5:30 pm championship game for the right to go to the Final Site one week later in Sioux City.

For complete NAIA National Tournament Opening Round information, go to NAIA.

For the full NAIA National Tournament Bracket, go to Bracket.

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