The Union Pines girls will open the state basketball playoffs with a home game, while the Union Pines boys and North Moore girls will be on the road.

In a new pairing system, similar to the one used in the state football playoffs, which uses 1-16 rankings for each of the four sectionals (East, Mideast, Midwest, West) the fifth-seeded Lady Vikings are are slated to take on 12th seed Triton, Monday in a home game in the 3-A Mideast Sectional.

The North Moore girls, the 11th seed, will travel to take on sixth-seeded East Wilkes in the opening round of the 1-A Midwest Sectional.

The Union Pines boys, the 12th seed, face a familiar foe in Westover in Monday's opening round of the 3-A Mideast Sectionals. Westover was the regular season champions of the Cape Fear Valley Conference, while the Vikings finished third in the same league.

All games are slated to start at 7 p.m.

The old pairing system used conference placing to setup each sectional bracket with top-seeds facing four-seeds, two-seeds facing three-seeds and twos playing twos (with a wild card entry or two thrown in as needed.) After round one, a predetermined conference seeding priority system would be in effect for the subsequent two rounds, which designated the host squad in all playoff contests featuring teams with the same initial (round-one) seed.

In the NCHSAA state hoops playoffs, the first three rounds are played at the higher-seeded team's home gym. Then rounds four and five shift to a host site to determine regional champions from the four district title winners in each region. Finally the East and West Region champs square off in state championship games for each of the four (1-A, 2-A, 3-A and 4-A) divisions.