Sports of all Sorts: Your Guide to Championship Week

It's the most unique and special week of the varsity sports calendar each year.

For seven days and seven nights, the best boys and girls basketball teams converge on the Westchester County Center in White Plains for Championship Week.

It all starts on Monday, Feb. 22 with 36 teams and ends on Sunday, Feb. 28.

Champions will be awarded in five classes for both boys and four classes for girls, with those nine teams advancing to the state tournament.

Here are some facts surrounding this week's tournament:

They're No. 1: Here's a look at the No. 1 seeds: For the boys — New Rochelle (Class AA), Spring Valley (Class A), Woodlands (Class B), Valhalla (Class C), Martin Luther King (Class D). For the girls — Ossining (Class AA), Pearl River (Class A), Irvington (Class B), Valhalla (Class C).

Boys and girls: Seven schools have both their boys and girls teams in the final four this week: Ossining (Class AA), Peekskill (Class A), Irvington (Class B), Nanuet (Class B), Blind Brook (Class C), Haldane (Class C) and Valhalla (Class C).

500 and counting: Irvington girls coach Gina Maher will be looking for career win No. 501 on Tuesday, Feb. 23 at 8:15 p.m. when the top-seeded Bulldogs face No.  4 John F. Kennedy in the Class B semifinals. Maher picked up her 500th win in the quarterfinals as the Bulldogs beat visiting Woodlands 67-53 in the quarterfinals. Maher's 34 years at Irvington make her the longest tenured hoop coach in the section.

It's Knight time: Mount Vernon boys coach Bob Cimmino will be taking his team to Championship Week for the 16th time in his 16 seasons as head coach. Eleven of those times, the Knights have gone on to play in the final, including. Four times, they won state titles.

Having a ball: Each of the eight champions will receive a gold ball trophy, emblematic of sectional supremacy.

Rivalry renewed: The most eagerly awaited semifinal may be between longtime rivals New Rochelle and Mount Vernon on the boys' side. The teams not only go at it twice during the regular season, but have had some memorable playoff battles, too. The game is 6:45 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 26. Mount Vernon is the defending sectional champ, but New Ro won both regular-season meetings — 77-67 and 62-58.

Blue-chipper: Perhaps the most heavily recruited player — either boys or girls — on display at the County Center this week will be Lakeland's Tori Jarocz. The senior star, a 6-foot-3 forward who carries a 3.5 grade-point average, committed to Vanderbilt last March after being recruiting by many major Division I programs, including Notre Dame, Ohio State, DePaul, West Virginia and Michigan. Jarocz and the second-seeded Hornets meet No. 6 Albertus Magnus on Thursday, Feb. 25 at 3 p.m. in the semifinals.