The Northern State women’s basketball program enters postseason play today with a head full of steam.

The Wolves won their last four games of the season and went 8-3 in their last 11 games to earn the No. 3 seed in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference North Division and, with it, a first-round home game.

Northern will host Upper Iowa, the No. 6 seed in the NSIC South. The game is set for noon.

“We’ve strung some (wins) together,” said Northern coach Paula Krueger. “We’ve been playing pretty well. We went on that Winona-Upper Iowa trip and didn’t play well, kind of took it on the chin.”

Those two losses to Winona State and today’s opponent, Upper Iowa, came back on Jan. 27 and 28, respectively. Northern has gone 5-1 since.

“We came back and we have done some pretty good things,” Krueger said.

Northern is led by the trio of Kailee Oliverson, Laurie Rogers and Rianna Fillipi, all of whom are averaging in double figures this season.

But it’s the Wolves’ defense that has perhaps made the most difference in Northern’s run, particularly in the late going.

NSU ranks third in the league in scoring defense, holding conference foes to just 60.5 points per game. The players, Krueger said, have taken ownership of that.

“We had a meeting after – I don’t remember which game it was – but I asked the kids, what is it about defense?” Krueger said. “What can we do to help you out? They came up with a plan based on some options.”

With a rematch looming against one of the team’s last losses, the Wolves have some specific game plans in place in order to secure a win.

“We have to keep them off the offensive glass,” Krueger said. “They crash really hard and that’s what helped them last time. They had 15 offensive rebounds, I think. Too many, whatever the number was.”

Northern will also need to dictate pace, Krueger noted.

“They’re built to get 75-80 possessions,” she said. “We don’t want to allow that.”

The winner of today’s contest will move on to face the No. 2 seed in the South, Augustana, in the quarterfinal round at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls on Sunday.