Officially, Olathe South High is hosting a Class 6A girls tennis regional today. However, Lawrence and Free State players battling for spots at state won’t have to leave town to compete in the tournament.

A nearby option for the eight-court setup required to host a state-qualifying tournament wasn’t available to O-South coach Jon Renberger, so the former FSHS coach used his Lawrence connections and picked LHS as the site.

Play begins at 9 a.m., and the seeding for the single-elimination singles and doubles tournaments won’t be decided until shortly before, when all the coaches meet to determine the top 12 spots in each field (the bottom four are seeded by random draw).

All 16 singles players — including Free State’s Alexis Czapinski and Megan McReynolds, and Lawrence’s Whitney Simons and Kendall Pritchard — will be the first to take the LHS courts.

The first round of doubles will follow. The teams of Emily Sadosky and Caitlin Dodd, and Taylor Hawkins and Alyssa Raye will represent the Firebirds. Playing doubles for the Lions will be partners Abby Gillam and Zoe Schneider, as well as Lily Abromeit and Brooke Braman.

Tennis players from Blue Valley, Blue Valley Northwest, Blue Valley West, Gardner-Edgerton, Olathe East and Olathe South will be competing against the girls from Lawrence and Free State.

A loss in the early rounds means not just the end of the day, but also the end of the season. The top six finishers in both the singles and doubles brackets advance to the 6A state tournament Oct. 12 and 13 at Harmon Park Tennis Complex, in Prairie Village.