The pieces are in place, now it’s a matter of performing for the Northern State women’s basketball squad.

The Wolves return two first team all-conference players from last year’s 20-win team in point guard Rianna Fillipi and center Madelyn Bragg. Northern is ranked second in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Preseason poll, trailing only defending NCAA Division II national champion Minnesota State, a team the Wolves split with last season.

“We’re excited about it. We’re trying to keep the main thing, the main thing as they say, not let rankings play too much into anything, but we also know that we’re not going to surprise anybody this year,” said Northern coach Paula Krueger. “There’s an expectation where last year we got away with surprising a few people. That’s not the case now.”

Other key returning members for the Wolves include Alayna Benike, Morgan Fiedler, Decontee Smith, and Jordyn Hilgemann.

Northern has a blend of seven returning players as well as seven newcomers, including sisters Izzy and Lucy Moore of Sioux Falls, daughters of former NSU men’s standout Keith Moore.

Krueger said there is already a strong chemistry among the players prior to the season starting.

“Thye’ve really done a good job of ingratiating themselves to each other,” Krueger said. “I haven’t had to do much.”

A quick glance at the NSU roster shows that all of the players are from the three-state area of South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota.

“We’ve been lucky that we’ve had really good girls’ basketball in the state of South Dakota and the surrounding areas of North Dakota and Minnesota,” Krueger said. “We’ve been really blessed to get some of those kids to want to be here. To have Madelyn and Morgan choose to stay in Aberdeen, that doesn’t happen all the time, so certainly a blessing there.”

Krueger, who chose to play for the Wolves after a standout high school career at Langford, said recruiting local players was a cornerstone for legendary NSU women’s coach Curt Fredrickson.

“A lot of that came from Coach Frederickson,” Krueger said, “and part of that too is understanding that the reason we’re number one in attendance … is because we’re able to keep local people home.”

It promises to be a memorable year for the Wolves, regardless of what happens at Wachs Arena. The players have already taken in a Minnesota Lynx playoff game, will play two games in Hawaii next month, and have a rare contest to open the season tonight at the Aberdeen Civic Arena.

“Any time you get a throw-back and take things back to the roots where the program started, it’s fun,” Krueger said, “and it’s an exciting time for women’s basketball in general, so we’re excited to get started.”

The Wolves host Dakota State to open the season at 5:30 this evening at the Civic Arena.

While Krueger played in the legendary facility back in high school, the only current NSU players who have experience of playing at the Civic Arena are former Roncalli players Bragg and Fiedler, “but otherwise all they know is the mystique of it,” Krueger said, “the pictures they’ve seen and people talking about what the atmosphere used to be like. We’re excited to have a chance to go in there and create our own atmosphere.”

Krueger knows the Wolves will have a target on their back this season, but said the team doesn’t think about things like that.

“We just try not to talk about it. We approach each game and make that the main focus of doing what we need to do to win that game. And certainly there is a pressure that goes with it, but there’s a pressure to play basketball at Northern, regardless of what rankings are,” Krueger said. “It’s a reality just because of the mystique and the history and all the things that go with being a basketball player here, but I don’t know if the kids see it so much as pressure.”

So look for the Wolves to go out, do what they do best, and then let the results take care of themselves.

“We really try to keep outside noise outside,” Krueger said, “so the only expectations and standards that we really want to focus on are the ones that we set for each other.”