A steady stream of faces familiar to area basketball fans will return to the Bowling Green Arena hardwood for this week’s Mid-South Conference men’s and women’s basketball tournaments at Bowling Green High School.

The women’s tournament starts Friday with a trio of quarterfinal games, with two featuring former area standouts.

In the opener Friday, No. 4 seed Campbellsville (22-6) will face No. 5 seed Georgetown (21-7) in a 2:30 p.m. matchup. The fourth-seeded Tigers return freshman guard/forward Katy Smiley to her old home gym. The former Bowling Green standout has played in 20 games for the Tigers this season, averaging 3.1 points and 2.3 rebounds per game. Former Barren County star Katie Geralds, a freshman guard for Campbellsville, has appeared in six games and has averaged 1.8 points and 0.7 rebounds per outing. Dea Bradley, a sophomore for the Tigers who graduated from nearby Hart County, is the team’s second-leading scorer at 13.9 points per game.

After Friday’s second quarterfinal matchup of No. 2 seed Freed-Hardeman (24-3) versus No. 6 seed Cumberland (Tennessee) (15-13) at 5 p.m., the final game of the night also features a pair of former Bowling Green standouts making a homecoming when No. 3 seed Lindsey Wilson (21-7), faces No. 6 Cumberlands (18-10) in a 7:30 p.m. matchup.

Ex-BGHS stars Meadow Tisdale and Saniyah Shelton are part of a Lindsey Wilson roster stacked with former Region 4 standouts.

Tisdale, a sophomore forward who started her college career at Northern Kentucky, leads the Blue Raiders in both scoring (15.9 points per game) and rebounding (7.1 rebounds per game). She’s also the team’s top shot blocker (25) and is second in steals with 37.

Shelton, a sophomore guard who has started all 28 games for LWC this season and leads the team with an averaged of 30.9 minutes per game, is scoring 9.7 points and grabbing 7.1 rebounds per outing. Shelton, who started her college career at Eastern Kentucky, also has a team-best 39 steals.

A trio of Warren East graduates are also playing for Lindsey Wilson this season. Sophomore forward RaeEllen Jones is averaging 0.7 points in seven appearances, freshman guard Madison Lawson is also averaging 0.7 points in 13 game and freshman guard Kennedy Lawson is averaging 1.1 points in seven games this year.

LWC freshman guard Aubrie Naiser, an Allen County-Scottsville graduate, has played in four games this year. Sophomore guard Landree Moons (Clinton County) and redshirt freshman forward Rachel Bolin (Russell County) are two more former Region 4 stars on the Blue Raiders’ roster.

For the opposing Patriots, former Barren County standout Abby Varney has not seen action this season. Varney is a sophomore guard.

The Campbellsville-Georgetown winner will face top seed Bethel in Sunday’s noon semifinal game, while the Freed-Hardeman-Cumberland winner will take on the Lindsey Wilson-Cumberlands winner in the other semifinal at 2:30 p.m. Sunday. The Mid-South women’s championship is slated for Monday with a 5 p.m. tip-off. The winner receives an automatic bid to the NAIA National Tournament later in March.

The Mid-South men’s tournament opens Saturday with another game featuring a homecoming for a Bowling Green grad when Isaiah Mason suits up for Georgetown.

The quarterfinals kick off Saturday with a 2:30 p.m. game between No. 4 seed Lindsey Wilson (18-10) against No. 5 Campbellsville (18-10). Allen County-Scottsville junior guard Jordan Turner has played in three games for LWC this season, averaging two points.

Campbellsville has gotten solid play from junior forward Eli Brooks, a Barren County graduate. Brooks has played in 26 games with 17 starts and ranks fourth on the team in scoring (8.1 ppg) and third in rebounding (4.6 rpg). The Tigers also feature former Russellville standout Parker Jones, a graduate senior guard who transferred in from Oklahoma City University. Jones has played in 28 games with seven starts, averaging 4.5 points and 3.1 rebounds while also blocking 20 shots this year (third on team). Freshman forward Cannon Young (Clinton County) has played in five games and is averaging 1.8 points per outing.

Saturday’s second quarterfinal features Mason’s No. 2 seed Georgetown (22-6) taking on No. 7 Bethel (17-11) in a 5 p.m. matchup. Mason has had a stellar season for the Tigers, leading the squad in scoring (15.5 points per game) and rebounding (7.9 rpg) and ranking second on the team with 1.8 steals per game while starting all 28 contests.

Georgetown junior point guard Zion Harmon also has significant ties to Bowling Green, having helped lead the Purples to the program’s first-ever KHSAA Boys’ Sweet Sixteen state championship as an eighth-grader in 2017 before transferring out of the region the following year. Harmon, who previously played at Seton Hall, is averaging 9.8 points per game in 25 appearances.

The Tigers also count on former Barren County standout Aden Nyekan. A junior forward, Nyekan has started all 28 games this season and is averaging 10 points and 5.8 rebounds. Saturday’s final quarterfinal matchup is No. 3 seed Cumberlands (22-6) against No. 6 Cumberland (Tennessee) (11-16) in a 7:30 p.m. game.

The Lindsey Wilson-Campbellsville winner will face top seed Freed-Hardeman – ranked No. 1 in the latest NAIA national poll – in a semifinal game at 5 p.m. on Sunday, followed by the Bethel-Georgetown winner vs. the Cumberlands-Cumberland winner at 7:30 p.m.

The Mid-South men’s championship is set for 7:30 p.m. on Monday night, with the winner earning an automatic bid to the NAIA National Tournament later in March.