CORAOPOLIS— Let the games begin.

Brackets for the WPIALBasketball Tournament were released Wednesday night at the Embassy Suites. The 210-game tournament, featuring 154 teams, begins Friday night and concludes the weekend of March 2 and 3 with the crowning of eight champions at the A.J. Palumbo Center at Duquesne University.

"Our preliminary and first rounds consist of 90 games we have to get played in four days,"WPIALExecutive Director Tim O'Malley said. "That requires cooperation from a whole lot of people."

Eight Butler County teams — four boys and four girls — are in the tournament. Butler's girls face section-champion Latrobe at 6:30 p.m. Monday at Plum High School.

"We don't play teams from out that way very often,"Butler coach Dorothea Epps said. "We'll have to do some homework on them."

Should the Golden Tornado win, they would face the Bethel Park- Kiski Area winner in the second round. Bethel Park is coached by former Butler girls basketball coach Jonna Burke.

The Mars girls — the lone section champion from Butler County — come to Butler for a 1:30 p.m. Saturday game against Ambridge.

"For a couple of weeks now, I figured we'd be playing Ambridge,"Mars coach Dave Sylvester said. "This is not an easy draw for us. They come from the toughest section in Triple-A. This will be a physical game."

The Seneca Valley boys are in the tournament for the first time since 1997 and drew the lone pigtail game in Quad-A when the Raiders face Franklin Regional at 8 p.m. Friday at Plum.

The winner of that game meets top-seeded Moon.

"We've scrimmaged Franklin Regional, so we're a little familiar with them,"Seneca Valley coach Vic Giannotta said. "We have no control over it anyway. We go play when and where they tell us to go play."

There are 47 schools with both boys and girls teams in the tournament. Knoch and Freeport are two of them and will be involved in first-round doubleheaders.

The Knoch girls head to New Castle Monday night, when the Knights face Montour at 6:30 p.m., while the boys take on Blackhawk there at 8.

"Things worked out as I expected them to,"Knoch boys coach Chris Andreassi said. "I'm happy we're in a doubleheader. It's good for the school."

Knights girls coach Curt Vasas agreed.

"When we were in the playoffs two years ago, we played a doubleheader with the boys team at North Hills and the atmosphere was incredible,"Vasas said. "We're looking forward to doing it again."

Freeport's boys and girls will play a twinbill Saturday at Steel Valley. The girls face Shady Side Academy at noon while the boys have South Fayette at 1:30 p.m.

Summit Academy's boys play Riverview at 8 p.m. Friday at Valley High School.

Butler is the lone county school hosting first-round games. Riverside faces Freedom in a Class AAgirls game at 6:30 p.m. Friday, followed by Riverside vs. Shady Side Academy in a Class AAboys game at 8 p.m.

A tripleheader Saturday at Butler features Shenango-New Brighton in Class AAgirls at noon, Mars-Ambridge girls at 1:30 p.m., followed by Ambridge-West Mifflin Class AAAboys at 3 p.m.

Tournament notes:There was no undefeated team in the WPIAL, though there were 15 unbeatens in section play. ... There are 22 teams in the tournament with sub-.500 records and 31 teams that did not make last year's tournament. ... Class AAAliquippa was the highest-scoring boys team in the WPIALthis season at 81.7 points per game. Class AGeibel was the highest-scoring girls team at 62.0 per game.

<B>BoysClass AAAAUpper Bracket</B>Seneca Valley vs. Franklin Regional atPlum, 8 p.m., Friday, winner vs. Moon<B>Class AAA</B>Blackhawk vs. Knoch atNew Castle, 8 p.m., Monday<B>Class AA</B>Summit Academy vs. Riverview atValley, 8 p.m., Friday, winner vs. CarlyntonFreeport vs. South Fayette atSteel Valley, 1:30 p.m., Saturday<B>GirlsClass AAAA</B>Latrobe vs. Butler atPlum, 6:30 p.m., Monday<B>Class AAA</B>Mars vs. Ambridge atButler, 1:30 p.m., SaturdayMontour vs. Knoch atNew Castle, 6:30 p.m., Monday<B>Class AA</B>Shady Side Academy vs. Freeport at Steel Valley, noon, Saturday