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(NewsDakota.com) – The Region 1 title race has come down to the top two teams from District 2.

Maple Valley and Central Cass both won semifinals at the Region 1 Girls Basketball Tournament on Tuesday night, setting up a championship clash between the Raiders and Squirrels Thursday night at the Fargo Civic Center. The winner moves on to the Class B State Tournament running March 21-23 at the Fargodome.

For the second night in a row, Maple Valley started fast and built an insurmountable lead en route to a 52-43 victory. The Raiders scored the first eight points of the game and led 28-8 at halftime over Fairmount-Campbell-Tintah. FCT rallied in the second half behind four 3-pointers from Paige Meyer, but they could get no closer than nine points as Maple Valley hung on for the victory.

The Raiders were led by 18 points from Rylee Nudell and 11 from Cassie Pautz. Thursday night will be their first appearance in a region championship game since 2006.

For Central Cass, this will be their sixth straigth appearance in the Region 1 championship. The Squirrels punched their ticket by defeating Kindred 53-40 in the first semifinal. Kindred led 16-13 midway through the second quarter before Central Cass took the lead for good with a 9-0 run to close the half.

Central Cass extended the lead out to as many as 15 points in the second half, led by a game-high 19 points from Faith Dooley. Hannah Breske added 16 points in the victory. The semifinal game was a rematch of last year’s championship, which Kindred won.

Central Cass (21-3) and Maple Valley (20-4) will play for the Region 1 Championship at about 7:30 p.m. Thursday night. The game will be broadcast on Q101.1, with pregame coverage starting at about 7:20 p.m. It is a rematch of the District 2 championship game which Central Cass won 52-45.

The third-place game will feature Kindred and FCT at 6 p.m.