Girls basketball regionals start Thursday

The 2022 Iowa high school basketball postseason is almost here. Thursday night is tip off night for the Iowa High School Girls Athletic Union’s Class 1A tournament.

There are plenty of area games in Class 1A’s Region 6. Five of the six opening round games involve Union area squads.

Winfield-Mount Union and Hillcrest Academy will play in Winfield. The Wolves enter with a 17-4 record against Hillcrest (1-17) after sweeping the regular-season series.

The winner of that will play the winner of Holy Trinity Catholic-New London. The Tigers (1-21) will play at HTC (10-10) in the opener.

WACO (9-12) plays Wapello in a future Southeast Iowa Super Conference North Division rivalry. The winner of that game will play at top-seeded Notre Dame (20-0) in the next round.

Highland (11-10) will host Lisbon (7-14). The winner of that game will play at No. 2 seed Montezuma (17-4).

Also playing are Sigourney (11-10) and Keota (6-14). Keota dropped both regular season games against Sigourney this season. The winner of that will play either English Valleys (18-3) or Lone Tree (7-15).

The Class 2A tournament will begin on Saturday. Local teams Van Buren County (7-14), Cardinal (5-17), Pekin (9-12) and Columbus (3-18) will all be in Region 6.

Van Buren County will host Cardinal on Saturday, with the winner advancing on to play Iowa City Regina (16-4). Pekin hosts Pella Christian (3-16) with the winner playing at Mediapolis, and Columbus travels to Danville (11-10) with the winner getting Louisa-Muscatine (15-4).

The area’s Class 3A teams were separated into different regions. Washington (3-16) will play in Region 5 against Williamsburg (12-8), with the winner of that playing either West Marshall (19-2) or Union Community (4-17). Mid-Prairie (13-8) will play in Region 4, hosting Tipton (2-18) in the opening round, with either West Burlington (15-6) or Camanche (6-14) awaiting the victor.

All girls basketball brackets for Classes 1A, 2A and 3A can be found on ia.varsitybound.com.