The District 11 basketball playoffs kick off in earnest on Friday night with three Times News area teams in action.

The Jim Thorpe and Northwestern boys will have Class 4A games, while the Northern Lehigh girls will be in Class 3A action.

Boys Class 4A Quarterfinals

No. 5 North Schuylkill at No. 4 Jim Thorpe

TIPOFF

- Friday, February 25, 7 p.m. at Lehighton

COACHES

- North Schuylkill: Will Bracey, Jim Thorpe: Jason McElmoyle

LEADING SCORERS

- North Schuylkill: Jack Keiter (13.9 ppg), Ayden Conti (10.1), Adam Scott (9.1), Zane Zulkowski (7.9). Jim Thorpe: Kaiden Herron (14.83 ppg.), Derryl Fisher (12.83), Colby McHugh (6.58), Bryson Hedyt (5.65).

GAME NOTES

- Jim Thorpe enters District 11 play having won nine of its last 11 games. That stretch includes a victory over Shenandoah in the Schuylkill League semifinals, which earned it a spot in the Schuylkill League championship game for the first time in 36 years. The Olympians faced Pottsville in the final and fell to the Crimson Tide, 52-38 ... This will be the third meeting this season between Jim Thorpe and North Schuylkill. The teams have split their two prior matchups, with the Spartans winning 58-41 on Jan. 18, and the Olympians winning 75-49 in the regular season finale on Feb. 11. “They’re a very good team,” Jim Thorpe head coach Jason McElmoyle said about North Schuylkill. “They’re athletic, fast, tall and can shoot. They pose a lot of problems, and they can score in a hurry on teams.” ... McElmoyle said defense has been the key to the Olympians’ improved play during the second half of the season. Thorpe was 7-6 at one point, before a six-game win streak jump-started its strong finish. “Our players really bought into our system here. They’re all quality defenders, and as a team, we’ve really stepped up our play at that end of the court.”

QUTOABLE

- “When you get to this point of the season, everybody’s a very good team. They got size, quickness, the ability to shoot the ball, so they do a lot of things right and we have to make sure that we play a full 32 minutes,” Jim Thorpe coach Jason McElmoyle

Boys Class 4A Quarterfinals

No. 3 Bethlehem Catholic vs. No. 6 Northwestern

TIPOFF

- Friday, February 25, 7 p.m. at Catasauqua.

COACHES

- Bethlehem Catholic: Scott McClary. Northwestern: Cory Cesare.

LEADING SCORERS

- Bethlehem Catholic: Edixon Gomez (16.94 ppg.), Ryan Glassmacher (14.05), Alex Cerado (8.76), Louis Vidal (6.63). Northwestern: Dylan Witkowski (12.00 ppg.), Cade Christopher (8.52), Ethan Lazarus (8.22), Cayden Fitch (6.59).

GAME NOTES

- Northwestern is coming off a 63-50 loss to Palmerton in the Colonial League quarterfinals ...Northwestern won four of its final five regular season games before the playoff loss to the Blue Bombers ... First-year Tiger coach Cory Cesare said things started to come together for his team down the stretch after an up-and-down start to the season. “I really just tried to take it one step at a time,” Cesare said. “It was a lot of crazy circumstances. We still dealt with COVID this year. Our schedule was tough at times. We had a lot of back-to-back games, and we had one stretch where we had five games in six days, so it was a lot to deal with.” ... The Colonial League Tigers and the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference Hawks did not meet during the regular season ... Northwestern squeezed in two scrimmages since its Colonial League quarterfinal loss to stay sharp for Friday night’s game.

QUOTABLE

- “The season was a roller-coaster ride at times. There were games we won that we probably shouldn’t have, and some that we should’ve won and didn’t. The ball doesn’t always bounce the way you want it to, but we arrived at the place we wanted to when the season began. We took a little bit of a different route getting there, but we’re happy to be here,” - Northwestern coach Cory Cesare.

Girls Class 3A Quarterfinals

No. 6 No. Lehigh (12-10) vs. No. 3 Pine Grove (13-9)

TIPOFF

- Friday, Feb. 25, 6 p.m. at Martz Hall.

COACHES

- Northern Lehigh: Chris Heery. Pine Grove: Bill Evans.

LEADING SCORERS

- Northern Lehigh: Emma Niebell (20.73 ppg), Katelyn Barthold (7.86), Cadence Whalen (5.45), Cadence Peters (3.86); Pine Grove: Mikaili Donmoyer (15.1 ppg), Kailen Felty (8.2), Marissa Stewart (7.0), Bailey Dorson (5.6), Lindsey Wolff (4.4).

GAME NOTES

- The Bulldogs have now qualified for districts three straight seasons after going eight straight years without reaching postseason play … Northern Lehigh is looking for its first postseason victory since 2012 … Pine Grove and Northern Lehigh didn’t face each other during the season, but did have two common opponents – Lehighton and Panther Valley. Northern Lehigh defeated Panther Valley by 11 points and lost to Lehighton by 21. Meanwhile, the Cardinals beat Panther Valley twice by 46 points and 28 points, and split a pair of games with Lehighton, winning by seven and losing by one … Pine Grove went 7-7 against a tough Schuylkill League Division I schedule, which includes both Jim Thorpe and North Schuylkill … The winner of this quarterfinal matchup will face No. 2 seed, MaST Community Charter School. MaST is a District 12 (Philadelphia area) entry into the Class 3A subregional.

QUOTABLE

- “At the beginning of the year, our goals were to be playing in meaningful games in February, and to have a chance of playing in the postseason, and we were able to accomplish that. This is what we wanted to do, this is where we wanted to be. Any time you can get an extra game at the end of the season, it’s icing on the cake,” – Northern Lehigh coach Chris Heery.