When the Flathead Bravettes and the Glacier Wolfpack clash on the softball diamond for the first time today, they will have more than crosstown bragging rights on their minds.

Their 4 p.m. doubleheader at Conrad Complex begins with a Western AA showdown that could prove pivotal to both squads' fortunes.

Flathead (5-5) and Glacier (2-7) both own 2-3 conference records after falling to Missoula Hellgate this week.

"It's a conference game for us - the kids are excited," Flathead coach Dale Beerman said. "I think they will regroup. They will get refocused … and come back and play better (today)."

Flathead opened the season with a 4-2 overall mark despite returning just one player (two-time all-state center fielder Heather Haegele) from last year's state tournament squad. Glacier took its lumps early in its inaugural season, but hit its stride last week with its first two victories.

"We're battling for everything we can get, being a young program," Glacier coach Joel Bemis said. "Sure, it's a crosstown game, and that's exciting and that's good, but it's also a league game. We want to go in and just do our best and compete against Flathead, as well.

"If we can play good defense and just put the ball in play and put the bats on the ball, we can compete with anybody. If Flathead beats us, we want them to beat us - we don't want to beat ourselves."

Freshman Jesse Compton will take the circle for Glacier in the opener. She will be countered by - surprise, surprise - Flathead junior Meagan Hash.

"She has thrown every game, every inning," Beerman said of Hash. "If we played 21 games, she would pitch 142 innings."

Bemis said the Wolfpack kept practice normal Thursday by working on basic fundamentals. But he knows today's action - even the 6 p.m. nonconference game - will have an unmistakable feeling.

"The girls are excited because a lot of them know each other, and if they don't know each other, they know about each other," he said.

"It has that flavor of a crosstown rivalry. It's about time we had one in this town."