2The Mineral County High boys and girls basketball teams completed their regular season’s over the weekend and both are moving on for a chance to compete for a state title in this weeks regional playoffs in Elko.

The top four teams from the west and the top four teams from the east in the Division IV Northern Conference will square off in the eight-team single elimination tournament at Spring Creek High School and Spring Creek Middle School’s beginning Thursday. The top two teams in each bracket will move on to the state tournament next week in Las Vegas.

On the boys side, the number three seeded Serpents will play the number two seed McDermitt High from the East at 3 p.m. at the middle school gym.

Mineral County finished off an 11-5 conference record last week with a 58-46 home win Friday evening over Smith Valley before falling to Virginia City the following day to end the regular season. Their first round opponent McDermitt (7-3) is coming into the playoffs losers of its last two after falling to Owyhee 60-54 last week and Eureka 62-61 on Friday. The winner of that game will move on to play the winner of the Owyhee (east 4 seed, 6-4) and Whittell (west 1 seed, 15-1) on Friday at 4:40 p.m. at the high school.
Eureka, Excel Christian, Virginia City and Wells round out the rest of the boys bracket.

In the girls bracket, the number four seeded Lady Serpents (9-7) will face top seeded Eureka (9-1) to open the quarterfinals at 6:20 p.m. on Thursday at the high school. The Lady Vandals finished runner-up in the state tournament last year, and won the title the year before.

The Mineral County girls were originally slated to play McDermitt in the first round, but the Lady Bulldogs had five of its wins revoked on Tuesday by the NIAA after learning that they played with an ineligible player for parts of the season. The infraction dropped the Lady Bulldogs (4-6) to the fourth seed from the east where they will play Smith Valley (west one seed, 15-1) in the opening round.

The winner of the Mineral County/Eureka game will square off against the winner of Pyramid Lake (west two seed, 15-1) and Wells (east three seed, 7-3) at 6:20 p.m. on Friday at Spring Creek High School.

Owyhee (east two seed, 7-3) will play Virginia City (west three seed, 12-4) in the final game.

As with the boys, the top two teams will advance to the state tournament next week in Las Vegas.