RAPID CITY - Both Black Hills State and South Dakota Mines open the Dakota Athletic Conference season tonight at home. The Lady Yellow Jackets will host Mayville State

(2-8 overall) at the Young Center in Spearfish at 5:30 p.m. and the Lady Hardrockers will host Dakota State (3-5) at 5:30 p.m. at Goodell Gymnasium.

Black Hills State comes into today's game with a 7-3 record on the season, fresh off a 67-63 win over MSU-Northern at the Dickinson Classic.

"I'm pleased with our start this season," said Black Hills State head coach Mark Nore. "Our effort is there and our attitude has been good. But being such a young team there is a learning curve. We haven't been as dominate inside as in the past, so our defense has really done an awesome job of stepping up, and that is carrying us."

The Yellow Jackets will then turn around and host Dakota State on Saturday at 4 p.m. While the defense has carried them thus far, coach Nore says they need to come out sharp offensively at home. BHSU is led offensively by Katelynn Lamb and Brittany Fuhrman who are both averaging about 12 points per game.

"This is only our second and third games at home, so we want to play loose," said Nore. "Both Mayville State and Dakota State are similar teams that like to get out in transition. We're going to have to play well defensively and stop the drive, but we're also going to have to be on top of our game offensively, if we can do that and communicate well, I like our odds."

The School of Mines comes into the weekend at 3-7 on the season. The 'Rockers will be trying to stymie a five-game slide. They most recently dropped a game 90-78 against Doane College.

"We need to come out and play 40 minutes of good basketball," said Hardrocker head coach Barb Felderman. "The season has been kind of frustrating so far. We've used people stepping into strange positions that haven't played a whole lot, and so we're trying to show some patience."

The Hardrockers, who started the season 3-2 before the losing streak, are led by Bethany Holyoak who averages 14 points per game and 8.5 rebounds. They will battle Mayville State on Saturday at 4 p.m. in their second game of the weekend.

"Both teams we play this weekend like to shoot the 3-pointer so we're going to have to get out and contest the shooters. As long as we take care of the ball and are patient with the offense, then I don't have any big worries. We've been getting some solid team play so I know it's there. We've just got to come out and play more consistently." said Felderman.