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Lakeland and Maranatha Baptist have been meeting in women's basketball for better than 45 years, since at least the 1978-79 school year. Complete records of the series are unavailable, but in known meetings the Muskies have dominated the series with a 56-3 advantage since 1982-83. The teams have not met since Jan. 31, 2015, when Lakeland rolled to an 81-41 win at home. The Muskies have won the last five meetings, while the Sabercats (then known as the Crusaders) last defeated Lakeland with a road win 56-53 on Jan. 16, 2012. The schools used to be conference foes in the Lake Michigan Conference and Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference, and the Muskies dominated the series from 1984-2005 winning 39 straight games.

Lakeland last time out: Lost at #4 UW-Whitewater 78-35 Saturday
The Muskies finished their opening weekend 0-2 at the UW-Whitewater Tip-Off Tournament, facing a pair of tough teams from the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference including the host Warhawks, who enter the season ranked No. 4 in the D3hoops.com Top 25 Preseason Poll. Lakeland stayed with Whitewater for most of the first half, trailing by just six points with less than four minutes remaining in the half before the Warhawks pulled away just before halftime and with a big third quarter. The Muskies struggled shooting, making just 10 of 50 field goals and also committed 32 turnovers, though Lakeland also forced UW-Whitewater into 26 turnovers. Sadie Grabow scored six points and added four steals to lead the Muskies, and A.T. Bartlett added five points and six rebounds and was named to the all-tournament team.

Lakeland opened the tourney on Friday with a 101-64 loss to UW-Stevens Point, unable to slow down the Pointers as they scored 58 points in the first half and shot 52.6% for the game. Freshman Peyton Madl came off the bench to score a team-high 14 points including four three-pointers, and Bartlett added 13 points.

About Maranatha Baptist: The Sabercats make their season debut tonight and are coming off a 7-17 record last year competing as an NCAA Division III independent and in the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA). Maranatha finished with a 1-10 record against Division III schools, including a 0-3 mark against Lakeland's NACC brethren.

The Sabercats return three starters last year's team including No. 2, 3 and 5 scorers Paige Joiner, Lindsay Mikkelson and Chloe Steuerwald, plus Kyria Teachout, who was third on the team in scoring and led it in rebounding before missing the final 15 games. Maranatha Baptist is led by head coach Paul Brown, in his third year as coach, and the team's leading scorer last year (Katelyn Brown, who averaged 17.7 points and 5.0 rebounds per game) is now an assistant coach with the team.

Still growing: Lakeland entered last year with a young and inexperienced team; this year's Muskies are just young, with only three seniors on the roster, one of them being Sheboygan native Halle Boldt, a transfer from NAIA Clarke (Iowa) University. Lakeland returns four starters from last season, losing only school all-time career three-point field goal leader Kerstin Sauerbrei. A.T. Bartlett was named an honorable mention all-NACC selection, and Bartlett, Jenna Caterino, Alexis Johnson and Jenna Shea all averaged between 7.2 and 9.4 points per game.The Muskies finished 9-16 last year but rallied down the stretch with five straight wins before ending the season with a pair of close losses to just miss the NACC Tournament.