The East Penn Conference basketball tournament is set to begin Friday night in boys’ basketball and Parkland enters the tournament as the top-seed.

The Trojans (17-5, 15-1) suffered their first league loss of the season in their regular season finale against Central Catholic, but Parkland enters the tournament as the favorite to come away with the league title when the championship takes place next Thursday at the PPL Center in Allentown.

The quarterfinal round begins Friday night at the site of the higher seed and Parkland will host eighth-seeded Nazareth (12-10) in their first meeting this season.

Pocono Mountain West (19-3) is locked into the second-seed and will host seventh-seeded Northampton (14-8). West beat Northampton 71-40 earlier this season.

Outside of the seventh and eighth seeds being up in the air, the rest of the tournament was set as third-seeded Emmaus (17-5) takes on sixth-seeded Whitehall (15-7). Both teams played on Monday night with Emmaus winning 53-46. The Hornets won both encounters this year against the Zephs.

Liberty (17-5) will host Central Catholic (17-5) in the four-five matchup at Memorial Gymnasium. It will be the first meeting between both schools this season.

On the girls side, Bethlehem Catholic earned the top seed and will host Emmaus at 6 p.m.

Easton, fresh off ending Becahi’s undefeated EPC record this week, gets the two seed and will host Central Catholic at 5:30 p.m. at Easton Middle School.

Pocono West is the four seed and hosts Liberty at 5:30 p.m. while Parkland is the three seed and hosts Nazareth at 5:30 p.m.

All opening round games are Friday.

Round two games also move to the PPL Center next Tuesday, Feb. 13. The winners of Becahi-Emmaus and PMW-Liberty will square off at 8 p.m.

The winners of Parkland-Nazareth and Easton-Central will play at 6 p.m.

The EPC finals take place Thursday, Feb. 15, at 6 p.m. before the boys game.