Kingsville - The regular season is finally here for the Kingsville women's basketball team, who opens the year with a trip to Utah for back-to-back games on back-to-back days against the Westminster Griffins.

Fresh off of a dominating 77-45 win over NAIA North American University in TAMUK's Exhibition game on Monday, the team now prepares for its second and third games of the week, which will tip off exactly 24 hours apart, at 1 p.m. central time on both Friday and Saturday.

"We are looking forward to kicking off the season against a regional opponent on the road," Head Coach Michael Madrid said. "Road games are always tough and we anticipate Westminster to be a solid team."

The Griffins are coming off of a 3-25 season where they went 1-21 in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play. The team, however, returns its leaders in scoring, rebounding, and assists. They also added seven newcomers to the roster in the offseason.

"Westminster is a solid, veteran team," Madrid said. "They are 0-0 right now and have played a couple of solid D1 exhibition games. They are well coached and have tremendous players."

Kingsville's roster will be a similar balance of key returners and talented newcomers. Five Javelinas, freshmen Addisyn Parker, Logan Borchardt, and Jordyn Herandez - who all played well in Monday's exhibition - and transfers Kaycee Groves and Isabella Paradowski make up half the roster and will be playing in their first game in a TAMUK jersey on Friday. 

They are joined by five returners who are all upperclassmen. Seniors Abby Bala, Veyda Lake, and Janessa Payne as well as juniors Aina Maynou and Alyssa O'Malley each played in at least 26 of the team's 29 games last season and averaged at least 10 minutes a game.

In addition to playing on the road, the Javelinas will face a challenge unique to their early season. Including the exhibition game that the team played on Monday, the Westminster games will mark three games in six days - certainly a tall task. Additionally, the games on back-to-back days make both preparation and recovery difficult. This will be the first of three times that Kingsville plays games on two consecutive days, all three instances come in non-conference play. 

"I enjoy the back to back games," Madrid said. "Less prep the second game. Both teams make slight adjustments but it always comes down to execution offensively and defensively."

The game will be streamed free on the RMAC Network here. Live stats for the matchup can be found here.