CHADRON, Neb. -- Both Chadron State College basketball teams will be striving to break six-game losing streaks when they visit South Dakota Mines in Rapid City in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference contests on Friday night. The Eagles also will visit Black Hills State in Spearfish on Saturday while concluding their regular season schedules.
             
The last time either of the Chadron State teams won was on Feb. 3 at home while playing the same teams they'll meet Friday night—the SD Mines Hardrockers.
             
The Lady Eagles managed a 70-67 win despite playing without three of their regulars, including leading scorer and rebounder Shay Powers and floor leader, Olivia Waufle. The CSC men scored 38 points in each half and prevailed 76-70.
             
Since then the Chadron State women have continued to play hard, Powers and Waufle have returned to the court, but other key players such as Megan Comer and Kyra Tanabe have been sidelined.

In addition, another stalwart, Kylie Krise, sustained what appeared to be a serious ankle injury early in last Saturday's game versus Colorado Mines and did not return to action.

The Lady Eagles enter their final games at 6-18 overall and 4-16 in the conference.

The CSC men have also stumbled the last three weeks. The first five of the losses were nail biters that could have gone either way before Colorado Mines beat them by 18 points Saturday.  The six-game losing skid is the team's longest since Shane Paben became the head coach four years ago.

The Eagles' men were 8-4 at the end of December, but are now 11-15 for the season and 8-12 in the RMAC. They are tied for eighth in the league standings with CSU-Pueblo. A couple of triumphs this weekend could still allow them to make the playoffs, particularly since a win Friday night would give CSC a 2-0 advantage over the Hardrockers this season.  Mines is seventh in the conference list at 9-11.

Like the Eagles, the Mines men are 11-15 for the season. They played well on the road last weekend when they beat Adams State 83-81 in overtime and lost to conference leader Fort Lewis, which is now 24-2 overall and 19-1 in the RMAC, by just 86-83.

The Hardrockers played both of those games without their leading scorer, Cameron Cohn, who is averaging 20.3 points.  But center Keagan Smith and guard Alejandro Rama took up the slack by scoring 48 and 39 points, respectively.

The Black Hills State men have had an up and down season, never winning more than two games in a row.  The Yellow Jackets are 14-12 overall and 12-8 in the RMAC standings, good for a tie for fourth place and assured of a playoff berth.

Black Hills' top scorer is 6-4 fifth-year senior Matt Ragsdale, who is leading the RMAC with a 21.8-point average while shooting 48.7% from the field, including 75-of-211 from 3-point range.  Second on the team's scoring chart is 6-4 junior Caelin Herne at 13.4 points a game.

The South Dakota Mines women had lost seven straight before toppling Fort Lewis 73-60 Saturday night in Durango.  They are 6-20 for the season and 6-14 in the RMAC and out of the playoff hunt. Their main weapon is senior guard Piper Bauer, who is averaging 16.7 points and is shooting 39% while making 85 shots from behind the arc.

The Black Hills women, coached by veteran Mark Nore, are solid again. They are 15-9 for the season and 12-8 in the RMAC, good for fifth place and playoff spot.  No one in the Lady Jackets' lineup is scoring more than nine points a game, but six of them are averaging at least 7.3