Vian and Roland boast the highest-ranked boys' teams from Sequoyah County, but both of their head coaches are expecting big challenges at this week's regional tournaments.

The Wolverines and Rangers are among a number of county teams getting set for regional action, which tips off Thursday for Classes 4A, 3A and 2A.

Vian is ranked No. 8 in Class 3A and is playing in the regional hosted by Stigler. The sub-site is Chouteau, which is where the Wolverines will play on Thursday night against the Wildcats.

"We've got a tough match-up at Chouteau," said Vian head coach Leland Williams. "They play good man-to-man defense, execute real well offensively and they always take the best shot. We'll try to force the tempo a little bit and get them to run with us because they only play about five guys."

Williams said Chouteau is battle-tested and he doesn't expect the Wildcats to be intimidated by his team.

"They play in a tough conference with Fort Gibson and Wagoner, so they've played good teams," he said. "Chouteau scares me and I want to have the guys focused so we can get past this one. If we start out slow, we could be in trouble."

The Vian girls will also be playing in the regional semifinals after their win over Stigler last week. The Lady Wolverines will take on No. 8-ranked Chouteau at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Chouteau.

In Class 4A, both the Roland girls and boys teams will travel to Broken Bow for Thursday night regional semifinal match-ups with Idabel.

The Rangers of head coach Eddie Lewis are 21-1 and ranked fourth, but he isn't expecting an easy time against an Idabel squad that advanced with a 39-38 win over Broken Bow.

"Idabel is very athletic and very quick. They're very patient on offense and play good defense. They really get after you, so it should be a good ball game.," said Lewis. "We'll just try to play our normal game, try to play some good defense and maybe get some easy shots off of that."

In addition to reaching the regional finals, the Rangers have another incentive: trying to avoid a 3 p.m. losers bracket game on Friday at Okmulgee.

"It's about a three-hour bus ride to Broken Bow, so we won't get home until about 1:30 in the morning. We'd have to get up and leave early for Okmulgee the next day and we don't want that," said Lewis. "It will be a nice ride home from Broken Bow if we get a win."

The Roland girls will take the No. 5-ranking into their 6:30 p.m. Thursday clash with Idabel, which posted a 23-22 win over Broken Bow in the district playoffs.

Elsewhere in Class 4A, Sallisaw will serve as a regional sub-site on Thursday night.

Action will begin at 1:30 p.m. at Paul Post Fieldhouse with a losers bracket game between the Muldrow girls and Victory Christian. That will be followed by a losers bracket match-up between the Sallisaw boys and Cascia Hall at 3 p.m.

Regional semifinals will begin at 6:30 p.m. with the 13th-ranked Lady Diamonds taking on Cascia Hall. The Muldrow boys will play Victory Christian at 8 p.m.

Two other schools from Sequoyah County are involved in losers bracket games in the Class 2A regionals.

Central, which was swept by Porum in last week's district playoffs, will try to stave off elimination on Thursday at Porum. The Lady Tigers will take on Salina at 1:30 p.m. and the boys will play Salina at 3.

Gore will also be looking to avoid elimination when the Pirates and Lady Pirates travel to Talihina on Thursday. The Gore girls will play Haworth at 1:30 p.m. and the boys will take on Talihina at 3 p.m.