The Hillcrest Academy Raven girls basketball team faces a tall task Thursday when they travel to Montezuma to begin Class 1A regional play. Hillcrest comes into the night after closing a winless regular season at 0-19, 0-16 in the Southeast Iowa Superconference, following a 45-27 loss to Wapello last week. This year the Ravens are scoring 24 points per game and giving up 52, shooting 23% from the floor, 21% from three and 50% at the line with 26 rebounds, five assists, seven steals and 25 turnovers per game. Individual leaders include Claire Withrow at 10 points per night. Delaney Shaw leads the Ravens at four boards per game and Malia Yoder averages three steals and two assists per night.

Montezuma is 18-3 overall, they finished as 13-1, Co-champions of the South Iowa Cedar League. They were 52-46 winners last time out over Grundy Center 52-46. They score 57 points per game and give up 35, shooting 40% from the floor, 33% from three and 64% at the line with 24 rebounds, 12 assists, seven steals and eight turnovers per game. Individually, the Bravettes are led by Mia Boulton at 16 points four assists and two steals per game. This week, Raven head coach Mitchell Drey talked with KCII sports about the keys for his team to perform well in the postseason. “I want to make sure that we have been building toward the best possible basketball game that we can play. I feel like we have had our moments where we have done that. We have stepped into it. We have also had some moments where we have regressed. We know we are going to have a tough matchup. I’m excited. It doesn’t change my mentality. I want us to come out and play hard.”

You can hear all of the action between the Ravens and Bravettes live tonight from Montezuma High School on AM 1380, FM 102.5 and KCIIradio.com, beginning with the Washington HyVee Pregame Show at 6:30 and tip off at 7p.m.