{"id":90670,"date":"2026-02-04T20:09:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T20:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.astound.com\/atvn\/?p=90670"},"modified":"2026-02-04T20:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T20:10:09","slug":"view-from-the-mountain-epc-playoffs-2026-preview-by-mason-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.astound.com\/atvn\/view-from-the-mountain-epc-playoffs-2026-preview-by-mason-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"View from the Mountain: EPC Playoffs 2026 Preview &#8211; By Mason Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The EPC Tournament brackets are set, and district playoff teams are pretty much solidified.<\/p>\n<p>On the girls\u2019 basketball side, Pocono Mountain West finished undefeated in divisional play, which not only guaranteed their spot in the district playoffs, but it was enough for the Panthers to get into the 8-team conference tournament as the 7-seed.<\/p>\n<p>Led by Pocono Record Player of the Year Emma Campusano and new(ish) coach Daniell Palazzi, West has a lot of momentum going into the postseason, especially districts.<\/p>\n<p>Pocono Mountain East is technically still alive for district playoffs, but to get in, Pottsville will likely have to lose its final two games for the Cardinals to swap places with them. Regardless of the result, Ben Battle\u2019 done a good job in his second year, and with no seniors on this year\u2019s roster, East could look to take a step next season.<\/p>\n<p>On the boys\u2019 side, West enters the EPC Tournament as a 3-seed, and they will host 6-seeded Liberty inside Brad Pensyl gymnasium. The Panthers had to come back against the Hurricanes for a regular-season victory, and that was without Brady Behr.<\/p>\n<p>Of all the matchups in the EPC quarterfinals, that might be the most intriguing one.<\/p>\n<p>There aren\u2019t any other teams in the conference tournament, but Pocono Mountain East and Stroudsburg will also compete in the 6A district playoffs, and it\u2019ll likely be against each other.<\/p>\n<p>Both teams are led by their point guards \u2013 Dominic McManus for East and Tae El-Bassiouni for Stroudsburg. The teams are No. 8 and 9 in the power rankings, respectively, so it\u2019ll likely be a play-in game for the opportunity to face the top seed in the class.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Astound or any other agency, organization, company or subsidiary<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"at-below-post addthis_tool\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.astound.com\/atvn\/the-final-four\/\"><\/div>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The EPC Tournament brackets are set, and district playoff teams are pretty much solidified. On the girls\u2019 basketball side, Pocono Mountain West finished undefeated in divisional play, which not only guaranteed their spot in the district playoffs, but it was enough for the Panthers to get into the 8-team conference tournament as the 7-seed. Led&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>View from the Mountain: EPC Playoffs 2026 Preview - By Mason Smith - ATVN<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.astound.com\/atvn\/view-from-the-mountain-epc-playoffs-2026-preview-by-mason-smith\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"View from the Mountain: EPC Playoffs 2026 Preview - By Mason Smith - ATVN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The EPC Tournament brackets are set, and district playoff teams are pretty much solidified. 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