The Carroll College women will take in the Peg Sarsfield/Butte Rotary Club Women's Invitational Basketball Classic beginning today at the Montana Tech HPER Center on the Tech campus.

Fellow Frontier Conference members Montana Tech and UM-Western will join Carroll in Butte. All three will take on Doane College (Crete, Nebr.), Grand View College (Iowa) and Dickinson State in the three-day event.

The Fighting Saints have gotten off to another great start by winning their first 10 games of the season for the second straight year, but they aren't the only Frontier team at the tournament that's off to the races.

UM-Western and Montana Tech are both looking good and UM-W is right on Carroll's heels with an 8-0 mark to start the year. The Orediggers appear to have rebuilt their team overnight as they're off to a 5-3 start that includes a win over Montana State University.

The Fighting Saints will take on Doane College today at 4, Dickinson State (2-2) on Saturday evening at 6 and wrap with a game against Grand View College (5-3) on Sunday.

Carroll is 12th in the nation in scoring at 80.1 points per game, while allowing 66 ppg. UM-Western is 19th in scoring at 76.4 and 25th in defense at 58.3 ppg.

The Saints are once again among the leaders in the nation in 3-point field goals. The lead the NAIA Division I ranks with 98 made from behind the arc and are second by percentage in connecting on 49 percent of their attempts. Wiley College is making a remarkable 69 percent of its treys.

Shooting guard Jolene Fuzesy leads the Saints in scoring with 18.8 ppg. She leads the nation in 3-pointers made per game with 4.8 and is connecting on an incredible 57.8 percent. Teammate and true freshman Elly Bruursema of Reedpoint gives Carroll a formidable 1-2 punch from outside as she is right behind Fuzesy's clip at 57.7 percent. Caitlan Courchaine is 11th in the nation in assists with five per outing and has an assist/turnover ration of 1.9.

Coach Shawn Nelson is pleased with his team's offensive play.

"We are making improvements defensively in practice and are beginning to understand how we want to play offensively by cutting down on turnovers and valueing each possession more," he said. "As our focus and consistency improve, so will our free throw percentage, which will be a key in our upcoming games."

Carroll is also crashing the boards as it ranks fourth in the nation in defensive rebounds and is out-rebounding its opponents by three rebounds per game. Overall Carroll is hitting on 50 percent from the floor, which is eighth in the country.