TULSA, Okla. (March 2, 2017) – Oklahoma Christian appears to be playing its best basketball at the right time of the season, which, considering the balance in the Heartland Conference this season, could bode well for the Lady Eagles in the league's postseason tournament.

The event began Thursday and fifth-seeded OC (15-13) will play its quarterfinal game on Friday at 2:30 p.m. against fourth-seeded Arkansas-Fort Smith (16-12) at the Union Multipurpose Activities Center on the Union High School campus in south Tulsa.

Don't let any seedings fool you. Any of the six teams remaining in the tournament after Thursday are plenty capable of hoisting the tournament trophy on Sunday afternoon and earning the Heartland's automatic bid to the NCAA Division II tournament.

For example, OC is 4-6 this season against the other five teams in that group. UAFS owns a win over top-seeded St. Edward's (Texas), while OC split with second-seeded St. Mary's (Texas) and third-seeded Lubbock Christian (Texas) and sixth-seeded Newman (Kan.) split their regular-season series.

Coaches often like to say it, and this year it's absolutely true – anybody really can beat anybody.

"I think it could be any team that wins it," OC coach Stephanie Findley said. "It's so well-balanced. Everybody has got pretty equal talent and it's just going to be who's on or which calls go what way, because foul trouble can hurt all of us, because we're all not very deep. If you can get on a roll and piece it all together, you can win."

OC won four straight games – including decisions over UAFS at home and St. Mary's on the road – before falling in a competitive game at Lubbock Christian (the defending Division II national champion) to close the regular season.

"When we're on offensively, we're as good as anybody," Findley said. "I guess a lot of teams can say that, but I really feel like we haven't had a game where everybody has been clicking. I'm hopeful we can get on that roll."

The Lady Eagles attack opponents with three of the Heartland's top six scorers. Senior forward McKenzie Stanford led the league in scoring at 18.1 points per game and the Perkins product – a first-team All-Heartland pick – is No. 2 on the conference's career scoring list.

Senior forward Sarah Parker of Piedmont, a second-team pick, averages 14.5 points per game, while sophomore guard Addy Clift of Kiowa, who earned honorable mention, is the league's most feared outside shooter and averages 14.7 points per game.

Findley said OC's other key players – including junior guard Audrey Hayes, senior guard Kylee Hicks, senior forward Emma Gade and senior forward Hannah Holasek – will be counted on to balance the team's scoring so that opponents can't focus only on Stanford, Parker and Clift.

Four current Arkansas-Fort Smith players have double-figure scoring averages, led by Zhanesha Dickerson (12.5 ppg) and 6-foot-1 Tayla Taylor (12.3 ppg, 8.7 rebounds per game). Taylor and Dickerson have combined to block 49 shots this season and Tamera Gulley has 35 blocks off the bench for the Lions, who rank second in the Heartland in blocks.

Arkansas-Fort Smith's size, length and athleticism might seem like a tough matchup for OC, but conversely, OC's ability to push the tempo and should provide a counter to the Lions' strengths, as UAFS has only nine players on its roster.

Both regular-season meetings were down-to-the-wire affairs. On Jan. 12 in Fort Smith, Stanford (31 points, 18 rebounds) and Gade (20 points) produced career-best games and OC rallied from a 21-point deficit late in the first half to take the lead at 72-71 with 6:02 left. But the Lions scored 10 straight points and held on to win 89-84.

In Oklahoma City on Feb. 18, Stanford had another double-double with 25 points and 12 rebounds but neither team led by more than seven points until the final 90 seconds. OC closed the game on a 13-2 run over the final 5:09 to win 79-70.

"We played very well here and we know we can do it," Findley said. "We got way behind at Fort Smith and came back and then we just ran out of gas after making that comeback. McKenzie had a second half that was out of this world. That's what you're hoping at this point of the year, that all of them can be out of their mind for three straight games."

The OC-UAFS winner will play St. Edward's – a 67-49 winner over eighth-seeded Texas A&M International on Thursday – in the semifinals at noon on Saturday. The championship game will start at noon on Sunday.