Seniors J.J. Kolumber and Tristen Pinnock aren’t too concerned about their team heading into the PIAA Class 6A playoffs against Stroudsburg this weekend. The duo and their teammates appear to know what is coming their way.

“The state of the team is good, and we had a solid week of practice,” said Kolumber. “We got back into the swing of things preparing for Stroudsburg.

“They are a big team overall, and we expect them to play an aggressive, tight man defense and even some zone.”

The fourth-seeded Konkrete Kids (14-9) will meet fifth-seeded Stroudsburg (13-9) at Allen Saturday for a scheduled 4 p.m. tip. The two teams didn’t meet during the regular season.

Northampton was eliminated by eventual champion Parkland, 60-47, in the opening round last year, while Stroudsburg did not qualify.

Pinnock has a similar outlook of the team and his opponent, despite both teams finishing in opposite directions. Northampton dropped four of their final regular-season games and suffered an opening East Penn Conference playoff loss to Pocono Mountain West, while Stroudsburg won six of their final eight regular-season games.

“We like this matchup,” stressed Pinnock. “We are beyond confident in our ability to win this game. If we can control the boards, we shouldn’t have any problem.”

Head coach Matt Scholl believes his team will be well prepared.

“We will have a total of 10 practices completed by the game and since our loss in the EPC quarterfinals. We have been focusing on refining our offense and breaking down each element of our sets.

“With our lack of size, we have little room for error and need to make sure that we are executing each piece of our offensive sets correctly. Stroudsburg will have a large size advantage so we need to be creative in finding ways to get open shots. “

Scholl credited Kolumber, Brody Graff, Noah Walakovits, Brady Simock, and Trent Moyer for their shooting consistency throughout the season. He also cited Pinnock for his defense and rebounding, and Shakim Dunbar for his rebounding and open-court play.

The second-year head coach also praised his team’s overall defense.

“We have been switching our defenses all year going from several variations of the matchup zone as well as playing man-to-man,” he said. “We will look to continue switching our defenses throughout the game against Stroudsburg.”

However, Scholl isn’t taking anything for granted.

In addition to executing our offense efficiently and playing solid defense, we will need to box out and rebound well,” he said. “When we are at our best, we can rebound and get out in transition.

“At this point of the year, every team that is left is capable of winning games. Our hope is to get the win against Stroudsburg and get another chance at beating Parkland or Emmaus who have been the top two teams all season long. It will not be easy and Stroudsburg has just as long to prepare, so we need to be ready for anything.”