There will be a family reunion of sorts this weekend at Notre Dame in the opening round of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.

The No. 1-seed Notre Dame Fighting Irish will host No. 16-seed Liberty in the second game of a doubleheader Sunday at the Purcell Pavilion.

When the Lady Flames step on the court there will be a familiar face on the sidelines to long-time southwest Michigan sports fans.

Andrea (Andy) Bloodworth is an assistant coach at Liberty University, which will take on the Fighting Irish at 2:40 p.m. Sunday.

She said she is excited to be playing close to home for the first time in her five seasons with the Lady Flames.

Bloodworth will have plenty of fans in the stands rooting for Liberty, including father Rick, mother Joyce and sister Tracey.

“It’s going to be a great atmosphere,” Bloodworth said. “It’s nice because it makes it easy for my family to come and watch the game. With my sister coaching too, it makes it difficult to see each other’s team play. But they are finished now after a successful season, so she will be there.

“My parents usually make it to a couple of games, but it will be nice to be close to home. I will be able to see some friends and former teammates as well.”

Coaching is in Bloodworth’s blood. She played on two state runner-up teams under the direction of her father, who coached 31 years at St. Joseph High School and 19 seasons at Lake Michigan College.

Rick, who played basketball at the University of Michigan, is a bench coach at Ferris State where daughter Tracey Dorow is the head coach.

Andy graduated from St. Joseph in 1993. She went on to play at Calvin College where she graduated in 1998.

Her first coaching stop was at Ferris State as an assistant for sister Tracey. She also was an assistant at Valparaiso, so she is no stranger to facing Notre Dame.

She said when it came time to decide on a career, coaching was the perfect choice.

“My transition into coaching was pretty seamless,” she said. “Being a point guard and growing up around the game and learning so much of it from the mental standpoint made it easy for me. Being a point guard makes you the coach on the floor, so the transition was pretty easy.”

Bloodworth has enjoyed coaching at Liberty under coach Carey Green.

“It has been a tremendous experience,” she said. “He has had so much success. He really has his priorities right. He is concerned about the players and them getting their degrees and being successful in life first and then with basketball.”