Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski Lady Marauders Gia Adams (center) and Stella Yeskey are handed the championship trophy from principal Mike Cacciotti.

Bishop Guilfoyle Academy’s girls basketball team will try to make school history by winning three straight PIAA championships for the first time when the Lady Marauders begin the state tournament Saturday at home against Otto-Eldred.

BG and 10 other teams from the Mirror’s core coverage area will open their PIAA playoff runs this weekend with the Altoona, Central Cambria and Cambria Heights girls and Bishop Carroll Catholic boys playing Friday.

The Bishop Carroll Catholic, Williamsburg and Northern Bedford girls will join BG in the Class 1A bracket on Saturday while the Penn Cambria girls (4A) and Hollidaysburg girls (5A) also start their quests.

The only other boys team still alive, District 6 Class 3A champion Bishop Guilfoyle, takes on Ligonier Valley at home on Saturday following the BG girls game.

The following is a breakdown of the PIAA brackets that involve local teams.

Class 1A girls

A year ago, the four District 6 teams that qualified in this bracket met in the PIAA quarterfinals after each one won two games, and Northern Bedford won a game in the top half of the bracket.

All four District 6 teams (Bishop Guilfoyle, Bishop Carroll, Saint Joseph’s and Williamsburg) are in the same positions in the bracket as last season, meaning if it plays out the same, Williamsburg would play Bishop Carroll, and Saint Joseph’s would take on Bishop Guilfoyle in the quarterfinals.

But will they all get there again?

Bishop Guilfoyle is paired up with the team that last defeated it in the PIAA playoffs, District 9’s Otto-Eldred, back in 2023. Of course, that Bishop Guilfoyle team was at the very start of a rebuild and included only Gia Adams and Stella Yeskey from the current roster.

The Lady Marauders should have no issue with the Terrors in their own gymnasium on Saturday, and that will likely set up a rematch from last year with the WPIAL’s Aquinas Academy — which will likely end District 5 runner-up Northern Bedford’s season in the first round.

Aquinas Academy came into the WPIAL playoffs as the top seed this year before being upset in the semifinals and returns several key pieces from last year’s team — but that team lost to BG, 58-27, in the second round. It’s unlikely the Crusaders can make up that much of a point differential against a team like the Lady Marauders that has improved since that meeting a year ago.

Saint Joseph’s Academy might have the toughest road of the four. The Lady Wolves will open with Geibel Catholic, which lost only two games this year — both by a single point to WPIAL champion Serra Catholic, and Geibel actually did win the first matchup with Serra, 64-55, in mid-January.

If St. Joes gets through that game, District 9 champion Clarion-Limestone would also give the Lady Wolves a competitive game, but St. Joe’s has a roster filled with seniors desperate to extend their season and get another chance at BG in the quarterfinals — a game in which the Lady Marauders shot so well out of the gate that the Lady Wolves never really had a chance to get their footing.

Bishop Carroll Catholic might have the easiest path to the PIAA quarterfinals with a home game against a DuBois Central Catholic that has seen its season end at the hands of a District 6 team three years in a row and then either District 10 champion Farrell (which has a losing record and was blown out by Carroll last season in that spot) or WPIAL fifth-place finisher Sewickley Academy.

Williamsburg, which defeated undefeated WPIAL champion Union in the first round last year, will take on Serra Catholic in its own gym this year. The Lady Blue Pirates may or may not have 6-foot-2 inch Levada Gorsuch available after she suffered an ankle injury in the District 6 semifinals and has spent time on crutches since.

But Serra Catholic also is dealing with injury woes as it lost star freshman Lexi Pearce to injury after she led the Lady Eagles with 17 points in the WPIAL championship.

Williamsburg also proved itself capable of competing with high-level teams without Gorsuch when it almost topped Saint Joseph’s in the consolation game without her playing.

From there, it’s hard to argue against Bishop Guilfoyle coming out on top as it did in the District 6 playoffs this year and in both the districts and PIAA postseason a year ago barring several injuries or sickness. The Lady Marauders are just too deep and have too many weapons.

Something to keep in mind, though, for a potential Bishop Carroll-Williamsburg quarterfinal — senior point guard LeeAnna Royer, who has scored more than 1,000 career points, did not play in last year’s state playoff game.

Class 3A girls

The Class 3A girls field is the only other bracket that features more than one local team, and Central Cambria is coming off a run to the PIAA quarterfinals in it from this same position a year ago.

In fact, the Lady Devils open against the team — Our Lady of the Sacred Heart — that eliminated them last season in that round. OLSH graduated its top player, and Central Cambria has rebuilt around Katie George and lone senior Alaina Long. Most importantly, the team believes it can beat anyone, a credit to last year’s Altoona Mirror girls Coach of the Year, Brittany Bracken.

There is a chance Central Cambria could have a second-round rematch against Karns City, a team the Lady Devils beat by 16 last season, but don’t be surprised if Seton LaSalle from the WPIAL gives Karns City everything it can handle in the first round. Karns City plays mostly teams smaller than it, and LaSalle played a competitive game against defending PIAA Class 2A champion Berlin Brothersvalley in the regular season.

There’s a good chance WPIAL champion Shady Side Academy would be waiting for Central Cambria in this year’s quarterfinals, and the Lady Devils might get an idea of what to expect when Shady Side opens the postseason with Marion Center, which was the second seed in the District 6 playoffs and won the Heritage Conference.

Cambria Heights is the favorite to win its opener at home against Troy Area on Friday, which will likely set up an interesting rematch from the 2020 season in this same round against Camp Hill’s Trinity. The Lady Highlanders won that game that year just before the rest of the tournament was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A possible quarterfinal opponent for Cambria Heights would most likely be Greensburg Central Catholic, the team that beat the Lady Highlanders in last year’s PIAA playoffs and one of the two teams that have beaten Bishop Guilfoyle this year.

Class 6A girls

Altoona is exactly where it was a year ago, hosting WPIAL runner-up Norwin at the AAHS Fieldhouse in a first-round PIAA game, and it will enter as the favorite.

That is impressive considering the Lady Lions lost two great players from last year’s team in Melana Eyer and Lanie Wilt, but the player who had the biggest game against Norwin in last year’s victory is back in Brionna Hudson, who scored 22 points.

Altoona will play either Mid-Penn foe Mechanicsburg or Pennsbury, the District 1 runner-up. The Lady Lions fell to Garnet Valley from District 1 in this round last year, and while Pennsbury has no common opponents with Altoona, it has played some very low-scoring games.

If the Lady Lions can keep the game close and get hot from outside, they should have a chance to advance.

Class 5A girls

Hollidaysburg is coming off an appearance in the PIAA quarterfinals for the first time since 2021 and might have a chance to repeat that run.

The Lady Tigers’ first-round opponent, Trinity out of Washington, Pa., could be dangerous as the Hillers fell to WPIAL champion South Fayette by just three points in the postseason, but with Hollidaysburg playing at home and four solid seniors in Makenna Weimert, Clare Padamonsky, Alana Lightner and Jillian Sidney playing for their high school careers, it should prevail.

York Suburban, which Hollidaysburg beat, 51-37, last year, would likely be waiting in the second round. York only lost to Central Dauphin by three and crushed Class 4A power Delone Catholic, so this game could present more of a challenge than a year ago.

From there, a possible matchup against WPIAL runner-up Thomas Jefferson could happen. Bishop Guilfoyle defeated TJ earlier this season, and the Lady Tigers took BG to overtime in the first meeting against the Lady Marauders and would need that version of their team to show up to pull off the victory in that game.

Class 4A girls

Penn Cambria should outmatch Lewisburg Area in the teams’ first-round game at Saint Francis on Saturday — Lady Panthers coach Josh Himmer assured the Mirror that their bus is scheduled to arrive a half hour earlier than usual after the team nearly was late for the District 6 championship game.

The Lady Panthers play a style that is hard for teams that don’t see it to recreate, and it’s unlikely Lewisburg will have an answer for the relentless pressure and waves of players.

The next round, however, could be a challenge. Penn Cambria will have to play either Delone Catholic and legendary coach BG graduate Gerry Eckenrode or Lansdale Catholic out of District 12, which has a lot of impressive victories against very good competition this season.

Penn Cambria will need senior Makenna McCoy to keep up her hot shooting from outside to have a chance at making the PIAA quarterfinals.

Class 3A boys

Bishop Guilfoyle Academy is as good as any team on its side of the PIAA bracket, and that has been the case a few times since the Marauders made the PIAA championship game in 2019.

But BG has simply been snakebit when it comes to this tournament.

Whether it was coming up just short to Brookville in the semifinals in 2021, losing close games to South Allegheny last year and 2022, missing a layup to beat Girard in 2024 or losing by two at home to Loyalsock in 2023, when it came down to the final minutes for one reason or another the Marauders didn’t win.

South Allegheny went all the way to the championship game last year, and in 2023 Penn Cambria nearly knocked off Deer Lakes to make the championship game after edging BG in the District 6 final.

The point here is that Bishop Guilfoyle isn’t far away from competing to get to Hershey, but it needs to finally have luck fall its way. The Marauders had similar issues in the District 6 playoffs the last few seasons and finally broke that hex by beating Forest Hills in the final.

A first-round home game against Ligonier Valley should be a game BG wins, and it should also be a barometer on how the next round might go.

South Park will beat four-win Perry Academy in the first round. The Eagles recently defeated Ligonier Valley, 56-39, and are certainly a team that the Marauders can best if they are playing the way they are capable.

At that point, another matchup with South Allegheny is possible in the quarterfinals. Bishop Guilfoyle doesn’t have the top individual stars it has had many years over the past decade, but if BG puts forth an all-around team effort like it did in the District 6 final win over Forest Hills, this might be the year the Marauders finally top the Gladiators.

Class 1A boys

Bishop Carroll Catholic is back in the PIAA playoffs a year after missing them.

The Huskies made it all the way to the PIAA semifinals in 2024 and often do well in the state playoffs due to playing teams larger than them all season in the Laurel Highlands Athletic Conference.

But entering the postseason as the District 6 runner-up instead of the champion means they must open with WPIAL runner-up Serra Catholic. The Eagles also play schools bigger than them and have three players that are averaging double figures.

It’s also likely that Serra Catholic will know enough to focus on Jace Casses after he scored 47 points in the District 6 final.

If the Huskies advance, familiar state playoff rival Elk County Catholic or Monessen, both teams Bishop Carroll has played in this tournament in the past, would be tough to beat.