The road to the state title begins for area high school basketball teams. The Flagstaff Eagles girls basketball team are seeded tenth in the new Open Division tournament. The division blends in teams from the 6A through 4A conferences. The Eagles will host number-23 Mountain Ridge Tuesday night. The Mountain Lions are home to former Eagle Miyah Verse, who played at Flagstaff High School for head coach Tyrone Johnson her freshman year. Now a senior, Verse is heading to play at the University of Georgia next year. The winner will either host number-26 Nogales, or travel to number-seven Pinnacle Thursday. The losing team goes into their respective conference tournaments the following week. If the Eagles win their first two games in the Open they will stay in that bracket. If they lose either first or second round games, they will move into the 4A state tournament bracket. The Coconino Panthers boys basketball team are the 16-seed in the play-in round and will play at home Friday night against 17th-seeded AZ College Prep. It’s a rematch from the Flagstaff Holiday Tournament, where Coconino fell to the Knights 53-52. The Coconino girls are seeded 18th in the play-in round and will head to Phoenix to take on the 13th-seeded St. Mary’s Knights Thursday night. You can watch the Flagstaff-Mountain Ridge game on KAFF Sports Network on NFHSNetwork.com starting at 6:45 Tuesday night. To sign up, go to KAFFSports.com and click on “watch the games.” We will broadcast Friday’s Coconino-AZ College Prep game on The Legend 93.5/AM 930 and on KAFF Sports Network starting at 6:45 p.m.

In other games: Both Prescott and Bradshaw Mountain boys basketball teams are in the Open Division. Prescott is the 23-seed and will head to the valley to take on 10th-seeded Sunnyslope. Bradshaw Mountain is the 15 seed and will host 18th-seeded St. Mary’s. Both games are Wednesday night.