CRANBERRY TWP — It will be a clash of differing styles.

The Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic girls basketball team features three starters who stand 6-feet or taller.

The Our Lady of Lourdes Regional girls basketball team has just one player taller than 5-9 in freshman forward Francis Czyponis, who is 6-1.

North Catholic can score in bunches, led by 6-2 junior Sam Breen, who is averaging 30 points per game in the state playoffs and 27 points per contest this season.

Lourdes Regional is defensive-minded, surrendering just 32 points per game this season.

The two clash at noon Saturday for the PIAA Class A championship at the Giant Center in Hershey.

Something will have to give.

“We have to change our mentality,” said North Catholic coach Molly Rottmann.

That’s because Lourdes Regional likes to change defenses.

The Red Raiders, the runner-up in District 4, will run a 2-2-1 zone, a 2-3 zone, a matchup 2-3 zone, press and even occasionally play man — sometimes within a few trips down the court.

That has allowed Lourdes Regional to be very staunch on defense.

The Red Raiders (23-6) have given up 19, 29, 21 and 25 points in their four state playoff games this season.

In comparison, Trojanettes star Breen has scored 32, 31, 36 and 20 in North Catholic’s four state playoff games this year.

“We’ve seen a lot of different defenses,” Rottmann said. “We’ve seen defenses designed to contain Sam. I think we’re battle-tested.”

Rottmann, though, hasn’t uttered the phrase “state championship game” with her team yet.

“We haven’t even talked about it,” the coach said.

“We’ve been talking about if you do X, Y and Z, then we’ll be OK.”

One of those letters is surely dedicated to slow starts.

North Catholic (27-3) must try to avoid the sluggishness that has dogged it at the beginning of two of the last three state playoff games.

The Trojanettes started out slow against Keystone in the second round, but rallied at the end of the first quarter and put the game out of reach.

Tuesday against Bishop Guilfoyle, North Catholic began in a 21-10 hole with two minutes remaining in the second quarter, but closed the half on a 7-0 run and surged ahead in the third quarter to punch its ticket to Hershey.

“I have no idea what happened (Tuesday),” Breen said. “We started missing some shots and we got into our own heads. We can’t start out like that again.”

While it hasn’t been an emphasis in the days leading up to the state title game, it is certainly on North Catholic’s mind — particularly against a defensive stalwart like Lourdes Regional.

“We don’t want to get behind early,” Rottmann said. “I think as a coach, you want to put them in a situation where they can get easy looks early.”

North Catholic will be playing in its first state title game since 2011-12 — a loss against Steelton-Highspire.

The drought for Lourdes Regional has been much longer; this will be the Red Raiders’ first state championship game appearance since the 1993-94 season.

Lourdes is led by 5-3 junior guard Carmella Bickel, who scored 17 points in its state semifinal win over Mahanoy.

Breen said she and her team are excited to get the chance to bring a state title to North Catholic.

“This run has been so great, I can’t even describe it,” Breen said. “A lot of people have been done playing for a month, a month-and-a-half and we’re getting ready to play our 31st game of the season. I’ve loved every second of it and we’re so happy to get the chance to win a championship for our school.”