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WORLAND - Before defending their 3A state title, the Worland Lady Warriors will be out to repeat as the 3A East regional champions today in Buffalo.

The Lady Warriors (15-4 overall, 6-0 3A East: West conference) start the 3A East quarterfinals vs. the Newcastle Lady Dogies (6-14 overall, 1-5 3A East: East conference). Last Friday, in the regular season finale, Worland beat the Lady Dogies 48-35 at Newcastle High School.

Today's matchup will have higher stakes attached but WHS girls basketball coach Ben Hofmann believes both teams will benefit from the back-to-back.

"It certainly does and I'm sure it helps them as well. You don't see too many back-to-backs like this, so it's good for both teams in that regard. It's hard to change a whole lot in that amount of time. They have a good idea of what we're going to do and we have a good idea what they will do. It's going to come down to who will execute better," said Hofmann.

With the regular season done, practices for the Lady Warriors now consist of varsity players, allowing for the team to work through their drills and walkthroughs faster.

"Everything is a little quicker for us. You don't have the 20 girls to get into drills so practices have been a little shorter now. We are certainly able to get in and out of things a little quicker with fewer girls," said Hofmann.

The core of the Lady Warriors team were a part of last season's championship run and Hofmann sees that experience as an added benefit.

"We've been pretty relaxed this week which is good. A lot of them who were here last year realize what the postseason is about. We're all excited and ready for an opportunity. I think we've been pretty relaxed and having won a regional and state title last season certainly helps," said Hofmann.

Preparing a team for a postseason run can be tricky because it's very easy to look ahead. Hofmann and his staff have been telling their team to worry about the game at hand and if they do that they'll be where they want to be.

"There's no point to winning Saturday if you can't win Thursday or Friday," said Hofmann. "We kind of took the approach of each day of walking through two teams. We just look at each of the teams and prepare for both, because when you start speculating who you're going to play it never seems to work out. Basically it's about getting ourselves prepared the best we can."

Having last coached basketball in Nevada, Hofmann noted the differences between the Wyoming high school sports postseason and the Nevada postseason.

"In Nevada the top four teams in each league make the playoffs. There are no guaranteed playoff spots. Then in the tournament it is single elimination and one team from each league makes it to state. It's a little more pressure packed because if you aren't the top team you're not going to state," said Hofmann. "We're going to take the approach of that we can be beat any night and can beat anyone any night. Our best game has to show up if we're going to be successful. We have a little more leeway if we lose to work our way into that state qualifier, but we'd like to handle things ourselves and take care of business.

The key to a successful tournament run for the Lady Warriors will be the same thing that brought them to this point; defensive pressure, rebounding and quick effective ball movement.

"We have to keep improving defensively, we have to rebound and if we can move the basketball. If we can move it offensively, getting up and down the floor, creating easy points, we'll be tough to beat," said Hofmann.

Tip off for the Lady Warriors vs. Newcastle is at 11:30 p.m.