WEST CHESTER, Pa. — The USA Hockey High School National Championships begin on Wednesday, March 20 and the best high school teams in the country will converge on West Chester, Pennsylvania from hundreds of miles away. Besieged on all sides, it will be up to the Pennsylvania high schools to protect their home turf at Nationals.

The Owen J. Roberts Wildcats are one of those teams. Fighting out of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, the Wildcats have just secured their third consecutive ICSHL Pioneer Conference Championship with a thrilling 5-4 overtime win over Boyertown, thanks to a goal from their team captain, Cael Primanti. They’ve been placed in the Liberty division of the Division I bracket, and will play against every other team in their division: the Monarch Coyotes from Colorado, Utah’s Park City Miners and the Langley Saxons from Virginia. From there, the two teams with the top records in each of the four divisions will advance to the quarterfinals. 

As for girls hockey, Pennsylvania will be represented by the Inter County Scholastic Hockey League (ICSHL). This collection of teams — including Avon Grove, DTE-Shanahan, OJR-Spring-Ford, Downington West, Unionville-Rustin, WC Henderson, Kingsway, Conestoga, Radnor, Lower Merion, Pennridge and WC East — will send their best and brightest players to form an amalgamated team to represent the Atlantic Affiliate at Nationals. ICSHL is slotted in the “National” conference and will face off against the Bay Reps from Michigan in their first game of the tournament. They’ll follow that up with a tilt against Colorado’s Castleview Lady Sabercats, before finishing out the group stage against St. Mary’s Rams, who are coming all the way from California. Pending the results of those games, the top four teams in each conference will advance to the quarterfinals.