The East Penn Conference wrestling championship is slated to take place on Saturday at Easton Area Middle School.

The official pairings for the Saturday full slate of competition between each team in the conference won’t be decided until Thursday, but one matchup that appears to be a near certainty before pairings are released is the 7 p.m. championship bout between Bethlehem Catholic (8-0, 7-0) and Nazareth (11-1, 6-0).

Last year, Becahi was forced into the third place match, snapping the Hawks streak of four straight EPC crowns, as Liberty knocked off Nazareth 33-26 to win its first EPC crown.

This will be the fifth straight year that Nazareth has found itself in the conference championship, but the Eagles haven’t been able to grab a league title to this point.

It won’t be any easier this season, as the Hawks will come in as the favorites to restore their EPC supremacy.

With league cancellations last Saturday due to inclement weather, and Wednesday’s full slate of league wrestling, the matchups for Saturday are yet to be determined.

However, these should be the likely teams to participate in the different time slots for this weekend.

Saturday’s schedule kicks off at 1:30 p.m. with the bottom three teams in each division facing off for the 13th, 15th and 17th place bouts in Round 1.

Those participating teams should be East Stroudsburg South (2-4, 1-4), Dieruff (3-8, 1-6) and Allen (4-13, 0-6) from Division A taking on their Division B counterparts Pocono Mountain West (4-6, 1-4), East Stroudsburg North (5-11, 1-6) and Central Catholic (0-12, 0-6).

Pocono Mountain East (3-7, 1-4) could also be in the mix with the Division A teams for this time slot.

The 3:15 p.m. time slot will feature programs battling for seventh, ninth and 11th place in Round 2.

Division A representatives should be Emmaus (11-5, 4-3), Whitehall (9-3, 3-3) and one of Pocono Mountain East, East Stroudsburg South or Dieruff. The participants from Division B are a bit more murky, as Pleasant Valley (7-9, 2-4) is the only team appeared to be locked into this round. Liberty (13-4, 5-2), Parkland (6-7, 4-3) and Freedom (15-3, 4-3) are all hoping to avoid this round, but the reality is two of those teams will be dumped into this depending on this week’s league results.

With Liberty and Freedom wrestling on Wednesday, the winner will likely move on to the Round 3 at 5 p.m. in the more featured matchups for third and fifth place.

Stroudsburg (12-5, 6-0) and Northampton (11-1, 5-1) seem to be near locks from Division A, but who wrestles for third or fifth will down to this week’s results. The Mounties wrestle Northampton and Nazareth this week, which will factor in heavily while Easton (5-4, 5-1) is a lock in Division B to wrestle for third. The fifth place participant will most likely come from either Liberty or Freedom.