Hutchinson CC Sports Information

The Hutchinson Community College women's basketball team starts its 42nd postseason appearance with high hopes of making it another long run.

The No. 8 Blue Dragons will play the Allen Red Devils in the opening round of the Region VI Women's Tournament at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday at the Sports Arena.

The game will be broadcast live on Blue Dragon flagship station KHUT-FM (102.9) and on sister stations KWBW-AM/FM (1450/98.5) at 5:25 p.m. with Glen Grunwald (play-by-play) and Denny Stoecklein (analysis) calling the action. The game will also be streamed live on the Blue Dragon Sports Network at 5:25 p.m.

Hutchinson brings a 60-34 all-time Region VI record into the 2019 tournament. The Dragons are 31-9 in opening-round matchups. The Blue Dragons have won seven Region VI Tournament championships, the last coming two years ago in 2017. Last season, Hutch advanced to the Region VI semifinals, but was eliminated by Independence. The Dragons still earned an at-large bid to the 2018 NJCAA Tournament.

The Dragons are 28-2 overall and will have the No. 3 overall seed in the tournament field of 14. Seward County and Butler, the Jayhawk West and Jayhawk East regular-season champions, earned opening-round byes.

Allen enters the postseason as the 14th overall seed and a 3-27 record and finished seventh in the Jayhawk East. The Red Devils have dropped 13 games in a row. Allen's last victory and only Jayhawk Conference win came on January 9, a 69-63 win over Northwest Tech.

Wednesday's postseason meeting will be the fourth between Hutchinson and Allen, the first since 2014. All three meetings have been opening-round contests won by the Blue Dragons in 1987 (72-59), 1998 (68-46) and 2014 (105-33).

Hutchinson dominated the only meeting this season against Allen on January 5 in Iola. The Blue Dragons won 102-67 despite the Red Devils making 10 3-point goals in the game. The Blue Dragons dominated the paint with a 59-24 rebounding advantage and the combination of Dejanae Roebuck, Jada Mickens, Keeley Tini and Tijuana Kimbro combining for 50 points and 37 rebounds.

Allen guard Gabby Guzman hit 6 of 14 3-pointers in a 20-point performance. Allen's leading scorer Ariel Walker had 22 points.

Hutchinson is still feeling the sting of Sunday's overtime loss at No. 2 Seward County. The Blue Dragons had a lead with less than a minute to go, but couldn't finish off the win, which would have meant a Jayhawk West title. Seward County scored the first five points of overtime and didn't look back. Roebuck had 18 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Blue Dragons, who turned the ball over 22 times and allowed a season-high 59 total turnovers and 22 offensive boards.

Roebuck is now the fifth Blue Dragon in history to reside in both the Hutchinson career scoring and career rebounding top 10s. She is now eighth on the career scoring list with 908 points and is now No. 4 in career rebounds with 591 boards.

Freshman Makayla Vannett has 70 3-pointers this season, which is fourth most by a freshman and 13th on the Blue Dragon single-season list.