Eleven teams from the Altoona Mirror’s core coverage area qualified for the PIAA basketball tournament, which begins Friday with first-round games.

Four of those teams will play that night and seven more will open their state playoff runs on Saturday afternoon.

Seven of the 11 teams will play games on their home courts.

Highlighting Friday’s slate will be a pair of District 6 girls champions in Altoona and Central Cambria.

The Lady Lions will kick things off with a game against Class 6A WPIAL runner-up Norwin at the AAHS Fieldhouse at 6 p.m. It will be a rematch of last year’s game, won by Altoona 49-38. The teams also met in the 2019 state playoffs in a game Norwin won, 62-45.

The Class 3A champion Lady Devils open against the team that ended their season a year ago in the PIAA quarterfinals — Our Lady of the Sacred Heart — at home at 7 p.m. OLSH won that game, 47-43, but was the No. 3 seed out of the WPIAL. This year, it enters as the No. 6 seed.

Also in action Friday in Class 3A will be the Cambria Heights girls hosting a young Troy Area squad with no seniors on its roster at 7 p.m.

The only team facing a road trip on Friday is District 6 Class 1A runner-up, the Bishop Carroll Catholic boys, who will play at WPIAL runner-up Serra Catholic at 7 p.m.

Saturday’s slate will include a girls-boys doubleheader at Pleasant Valley gymnasium with the Bishop Guilfoyle Academy girls hosting Otto-Eldred at 1 p.m. and the boys taking on former District 6 school Ligonier Valley at 2:30 p.m.

Otto-Eldred is the last team to beat the BG girls in the state playoffs, winning a second-round game over the Lady Marauders, 49-37, in 2023 before Bishop Guilfoyle won state titles in 2024 and 2025.

Along with the BG girls, three other local 1A girls schools will open state playoff play on Saturday.

Bishop Carroll Catholic will host DuBois Central Catholic at 1 p.m., Williamsburg will travel to WPIAL champion Serra Catholic at 1 p.m. and District 5 runner-up Northern Bedford will take on Aquinas Academy, which was the top seed going into the WPIAL tournament, at South Park High School at 2:30 p.m.

Two other District 6 girls champions will stay close to home.

Class 5A champion Hollidaysburg will host Trinity at 1 p.m., and Class 4A winner Penn Cambria will take on Lewisburg Area at Saint Francis University’s DeGol Arena at the same time.

The PIAA second-round games will be held March 10-11.