After a strong first half of the season, the Northwest College women’s basketball team has the opportunity to finish 10 games above .500 heading into the conference schedule, rounding out non-conference action this weekend on the road with three games in Montana and North Dakota.

Players have been away from campus for a couple of weeks and only returned to practice recently before heading out this weekend.

“My girls are tough and competitors,” coach Lauren Davis said. “I expect them to come out and ready to get three road wins.”

That first road matchup begins in Glendive on Friday, taking on one of the Trappers’ (12-5) most recent opponents in Dawson Community College (7-8) at 2 p.m.

Northwest used a strong second half to pull away from the Buccaneers at home 90-65 on Dec. 15.

The Trappers will look to slow down Buccaneer Hailee Brandon, who finished with 28 in the last contest.

After squaring off with Dawson the Trappers will hop over the border to North Dakota, looking to avenge an earlier season loss against United Tribes Technical College (3-8) on Saturday at noon.

The Thunderbirds defeated the Trappers in the Miles Community College Classic on Nov. 25 after Myona Dauphinais scored 32 points in a 74-71 contest.

“(We will) limit her touches, and understand what she does well and do our best to take that away,” Davis said.

After squaring off with two familiar opponents, the Trappers will take on Bismarck State College (6-6) on Sunday at 11 a.m. in the first matchup of the season against the Mystics.

That will be the first game of the year for the Mystics and the third of the weekend for the Trappers, with Davis not planning to change her rotation in an effort to return to the playstyle that Northwest finished 2022 with.

“I don’t plan to change anything because we need to get back to where we were before break,” Davis said. “I plan to have my bench players make large contributions, and make in-game adjustments based on fatigue and who is playing well.”

One injury the Trappers were dealing with heading into break was to starter Natalyah Nead, who Davis said has returned to the court but is not 100% and will be playing limited minutes this weekend to prepare her for conference games in two weeks’ time.

Northwest will have two weeks to practice and prepare after this weekend for the first Region IX North game of the season.

That game will pit the Trappers against No. 23-ranked Casper College (13-3) at home on Jan. 21.