The NORCO playoffs began this week and all three of Bethlehem’s teams qualified for the postseason, but the Wanderers will lead the charge with the best shot of any local team to make a run to next week’s championship. They enter the tournament as the second seed.

That postseason summer journey began on Monday evening when the Wanderers (14-3-1) took on seventh-seeded Bankos (9-9) in the opener of their best-of-three series.

After going 2-0 over Bankos during the regular season, Dwight Pulieri hopes his team can continue that trend this week.

“It always comes down to who you and who you don’t,” said Pulieri in reference to missing players for various reasons during the summer. “I’m not sure how many guys they were missing when we played them the two times this summer and that makes a difference. We’ll be missing a few guys this week because of summer tournaments, but I think we’ll have most of our guys ready to go. Anything can happen at this point of the year. They can beat us or we can beat them.”

After the type of summer the team has experienced, the odds are in Pulieri’s favor for the team to make the postseason memorable after missing out on the playoffs last year.

With the second seed at hand and an opportunity to push toward next week’s championship series, confidence is high on what they can achieve.

“They have high expectations for themselves,” Pulieri said. “The kids know this is going to be more intense in these rounds, but they’re ready for the challenge and want to win a title.”

Freemansburg (9-9) locked up the fifth-seed and traveled to fourth-seeded Hellertown (12-5-1) on Monday with the winner getting top-seeded Nazareth in round two of the playoffs.

Northampton (13-5) and East Stroudsburg (9-9) were the three-six matchup paired in bottom of the bracket with the Wanderers, as this week’s action lends games on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, if necessary, for round one.

The second round is slated for July 12, 13 and 14 with the championship series set for July 15, 16 and 17.