By Steve Carpenter-HCC Sports Information
Monday, March 13, 2017

The Jayhawk Conference and Region VI champion Hutchinson Community College women’s basketball team will be the No. 4 overall seed for the NJCAA Women’s Division I Basketball Tournament, which starts next Monday in Lubbock, Texas.

The 33-1 Blue Dragons will meet the winner of No. 13 Jones County and No. 20 Western Nebraska at 1 p.m. CT on Wednesday, March 22, in the second round. You can hear the broadcast live locally on KHMY93.1 fm.  Jones County and Western Nebraska will play at 6 p.m. on Monday.

The Tournament seeding and bracket was released on Monday. Gulf Coast State is the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament. Odessa College is the second seed and Chipola College is the No. 3 seed.

The top eight seeds receive opening-round bye. Seward County, which received an at-large bid after sharing the Jayhawk Conference title with the Blue Dragons, but lost to Hutchinson in the Region VI championship game, is the No. 8 overall seed.

The Blue Dragons are making their seventh appearance in the national tournament, the first since 2015. The Blue Dragons have advanced to the national semifinals five times and have played in the championship game in 2012, 2014 and 2015.

Hutchinson enters the 2017 national tournament on a 31-game winning streak. The Blue Dragons were No. 2 in the final NJCAA Division I rankings.

In Hutch’s quarter-bracket will be No. 5 seed Salt Lake. The Bruins will meet the winner of No. 12-seed Wabash Valley and No. 21-seed Cochise.

The 2017 Women’s National Tournament will be played at Lubbock Christian University’s Rip Griffin Center in Lubbock. This is the second year that the Griffin Center will play host to the women’s championship.