It’s not a rivalry. At least not yet any way.

However, when Aberdeen Christian and Aberdeen Roncalli meet in girls’ basketball at 6:30 this evening at the Aberdeen Civic Arena, it will mark the first ever matchup of rated girls’ basketball teams from the Hub City.

The game pitting the top-rated Cavaliers and the third-rated Knights has garnered statewide interest, especially since both have been dominant for most of this season. Roncalli (the defending Class A state champion before dropping down to B this year) is 18-1 while Christian sports a 17-2 overall mark.

Naturally, the contest has been talked about for a while and the fact that both teams are separated by city blocks makes the story more compelling.

“It should be a great atmosphere, two ranked teams that are both in the same city,” said Christian coach Michael Rohrbach. “Hopefully, we can have some more fans that we normally do. It’s just a great chance for the girls to have a really fun game to end the season.”

The atmosphere promises to be electric and the historic Civic Arena will only add to the environment.

“The atmosphere is going to be awesome. I love playing in the Civic Arena. I grew up playing there,” said Roncalli coach Derek Larson. “I think it’s going to be a packed house for a couple of really good basketball teams. We’re just excited to play (tonight).”

To be clear, there is not as much at stake as there appears to be. Roncalli has wrapped up the top seed in Region 1B with Christian second. Both teams will host playoff games on Tuesday regardless of tonight’s outcome.

“At the end of day it is just a regular season game,” Larson said. “We don’t want to make this thing into something bigger than it is. It’s a regular season game.”

While that is true, it definitely won’t feel like just another game, especially with so much hype surrounding the contest.

Christian will use the game as a measuring stick more so than Roncalli, which has played in multiple state tournaments and has a title to its credit. The Knights qualified for their first SoDak 16 appearance last season.

“Just with the fact that they won Class A last year, they’ve beat multiple Class A teams this year, just kind of ran away with the Class B teams, so we know how good they are,” Rohrbach said. “I think it’s more of a test to see how good we really are. Our goal to start the season was to be the best that we could be and in order to be the best, you have to play and beat the best. We’re excited to give it our best shot (tonight) for sure.”

Interestingly enough, both teams feature a lot of the same qualities. Both are senior laden – nine of the starters this evening are seniors – both squads have quality guards, above average height in the middle and stellar post play.

The two teams have met just once at the varsity level, that taking place last year. Hence, there is really no way to classify this as a rivalry. Yet.

“Somebody asked me the other day, how big of a rivalry is this?” Larson said. “Well, we’ve played one time in the history of our school.”

However, he noted, it definitely could turn into a rivalry.

“Hopefully that’s the case, where both programs are playing well for years,” Larson said.

What makes matters more interesting is that this could be the first of two meetings between the powerhouses this year. Because of the seed points, the two teams couldn’t meet in the region or round of 16, but they could potentially meet if both were to advance to the state tourney.

“That is also an interesting thing. Obviously, if we’re going to get to state, and we have some work to do before then, it would be fun to matchup again in the state tournament,” Rohrbach said. “It’s kind of a balance of wanting to definitely put your best foot forward (tonight) and have a really good outing, especially getting ready for playoffs, but also wanting maybe not to just throw everything at them in case you do play in the state tournament where it really, really matters.”

Regardless of who wins this evening, the real winner will be girls’ basketball in general as two rated teams from Aberdeen will take center stage in one the most decorated venues in South Dakota.

“I think that’s what’s so exciting is just the fact that both teams are ranked this year in the same town,” Rohrbach said. “It just adds to the excitement and the atmosphere, and I think the girls will be ready to go for sure.”

The boys’ contest will follow around 8 p.m.