ALVA, Okla. – After the dust settled following what proved to be a crazy weekend in the Great American Conference, the Northwestern Oklahoma State women's basketball team finds themselves tied in the same exact position in the standings with the same teams as they found themselves before the weekend.

The Lady Rangers went on the road and recovered after an ugly 77-64 loss to Arkansas-Monticello by completing the season sweep of Southern Arkansas with a 77-67 victory. The Rangers finds themselves in a tie with Ouachita, East Central and Arkansas-Monticello at 6-9 in conference play for the final two spots in the Great American Conference post-season tournament. Each one of those teams went 1-1 over the weekend despite overtime games and upsets throughout the league.

The Lady Rangers will now set their sights forward after the huge road win in Magnolia, Ark. that head coach Tasha Diesselhorst looks at as a huge confidence booster going into the final stretch of games. The turnaround saw yet another Lady Ranger step up and make an impact alongside standouts Kalea King and Kori Barrios. Sophomore Deja Beechum made 7-of-15 shot attempts in the game on Saturday to record a career high 22 points against the Muleriders. In the last three games Northwestern has had high scoring games from different players besides Barrios and King, leading to what coach Diesselhorst describes as a "balanced" attack the Lady Rangers have developed over the season.

"It's not just one individual player every night, it's a group of players that are becoming more consistent which is nice," coach Diesselhorst said, "They're becoming more consistent scorers which is helping a whole lot."

Sticking with the turn-around theme from this past weekend's action, the Lady Ranger defense has made quite the turn-around throughout the season. Northwestern now ranks atop the GAC in steals per game with 8.6, and now ranks third in the league in turnover margin. Coach Diesselhorst's team has also capitalized at the free throw line at a high rate, ranking fifth in the league at 71 percent from the charity stripe.

The Rangers will put all of their improvement over the season to the test this weekend with two key in-state match-ups against Southeastern Oklahoma State and Southern Nazarene. Southeastern (12-7, 9-5 in GAC) comes into the match-up on Thursday night in Alva winning four out of their last five contests. The Savage Storm picked up two road wins over Henderson State and Ouachita Baptist this past weekend and feature one the most balanced offensive attacks in the conference. Much like the Lady Rangers, the Storm have had multiple faces step up and compliment their two stand-out players in guard Olivia Potter and forward Katie Webb. Potter leads the league with 3.2 three pointers made a game and Webb nearly averages a double-double with 10.6 points and 8.1 rebounds a contest. Northwestern nearly stole one away from Southeastern down at their home court in Durant in the first match-up between the teams, but as coach Diesselhorst puts it, they did "everything to win, except win."

"The girls are really looking forward to this game because it's a game we got off to a slow start in Durant and we just didn't have enough time at the end," coach Diesselhorst said, "We defended their players well in that game and we feel like we have the same kind of game plan. I think it's a game we are capable of winning and the girls have a lot of confidence because of how we played in Durant."

Following that showdown the Southeastern, Northwestern will hit the road for a Saturday afternoon contest with Southern Nazarene (9-9, 6-8 in GAC) in Bethany. The Lady Rangers struggled the last time out against Southern Nazarene, despite holding the Crimson Storm's leading scorer Abby Boyd to just seven points. Five other Storm players reached double digits to pick-up Boyd, as the Storm defeated the Lady Rangers 85-63. As has been the theme all season however, the much improved Lady Rangers will be sure to give much more of a fight this time around on the road thanks to the confidence built after road wins at East Central and Southern Arkansas since the loss against Southern Nazarene back on Jan. 12.

All of the weekend's action will get started on Thursday night inside Percefull Fieldhouse against Southeastern at 5:30 p.m., followed by a 1 p.m. tip-off at Southern Nazarene on Saturday.