RAPID CITY, S.D. – The South Dakota School of Mines women's basketball team will close out its home schedule Friday night as the Lady Hardrockers play host to the Western State Colorado University Mountaineers at the King Center in Rapid City.

The Hardrockers are looking to carry their momentum from a convincing win over this past weekend over Colorado School of Mines and continue to solidify their opportunity to make it back to post season play.

Heading into this weekend, SD Mines holds the No. 8 spot in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference standings. Winning on Friday night will give the team a good chance to make the playoffs with just two games left on the schedule.

Having won two of their last four games, the Mountaineers take a one game win streak on the road for their final three games. In Rapid City, Western looks for redemption against South Dakota Mines.

Western (8-17, 5-14 RMAC) takes to the road playing some of their best basketball of the season in recent weeks. With key wins over Colorado Mesa and Adams State, the Mountaineers have shown their capabilities late in the season.

With new found deliberate ball-movement and consistent shooting, Western poses a challenge to South Dakota Mines on Friday. Scoring well above their season average of late, the Mountaineers have gotten excellent offensive production from Samantha Coleman and big game flourishes from leading scorer Katie Dalton.

The late season consistency of Tammarrah Gothard has also helped push the Western offense. In four of the last six games, Gothard has scored in double figures and continues to force turnovers and make steals on defense.

South Dakota Mines (15-10, 10-9 RMAC) boasts one of the strongest offenses in the RMAC averaging 67 points per game with a 7.4 margin. Leading to the Hardrockers proficient production are high-level shooting percentages from floor. The 'Rockers are shooting 42 percent on the season and a potent 35percent from behind the arc.

Sophomores Anna Haugen and Cooper Courtney pace the Hardrockers with 10-plus points per game each while junior Taylor Molstad sophomore Sami Steffeck and freshman Ryan Weiss are all contributing with just under 10 points a game.

Friday is also senior night as the Hardrockers women's basketball program honor its four seniors – Krista Showalter, Payton Humpal, Sarah Rawlings and Stacy Hull.

The game will be streamed live on the RMAC Network and live stats will also be available by logging on to: https://portal.stretchinternet.com/sdsmt/ . The game is slated for a 5:30 p.m. (MST) start time.