Peabody Girls, St. John's Boys Top North Shore State Hockey Seeds

PEABODY, MA — High school hockey tournament action kicks off throughout the state next week with several North Shore teams earning a postseason berth this fall in the playoff brackets released on Saturday morning.

Seedings were based on an MIAA formula including win-loss record, the margin of victory and strength of schedule.

The Peabody girls hockey team leads a group of four area squads in the Division 1 bracket with the 8th-seeded club finishing 16-4 in the regulation season and scoring a first-round matchup against No. 25 Shawsheen Tech on Wednesday (McVann Arena, Peabody, 5:15 p.m.).

Bishop Fenwick was seeded No. 17 in Div. 1 girls with a 7-10-3 record and will travel to face No. 16 Plymouth South (10-10) at Gallo Arena in Bourne on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m.

Beverly was seeded No. 23 at 10-9-1 and will travel to face No. 10 Arlington (13-5-2) at Ed Burns Arena in Arlington on Wednesday at 6 p.m.

Marblehead was seeded No. 29 at 4-15-1 and will travel to face fourth-seeded Haverhill (12-6-2) at 7 p.m. on Wednesday at Haverhill High.

St. John's Prep of Danvers was seeded No. 1 in Division 1 boys with a 17-2-1 record. The Eagles will host the winner of the Waltham/Lexington preliminary round game at a date and time to be determined as of Sunday afternoon.

Marblehead checked in at No. 16 in Division 2 with a 13-5-4 mark and will host No. 17 Norwood (12-6-2) in its opener Wednesday night at 7:30 at Rockett Arena in Salem.

Essex North Shore's 17-1-2 mark earned it a No. 8 seed in Division 3 boys and it will host No. 26 Northbridge (10-10) in its tournament debut at the Essex Sports Center Thursday at 6:40.

Danvers finished with an 8-11-3 record and will be seeded No. 23 when it travels up the shore to face No. 10 Triton (11-7-2) to start things off on Wednesday at 4 p.m. at Graf Rink in Newburyport.

Swampscott is No. 21 in Division 4 boys and will travel to face No. 12 Hull/Cohasset (12-5-3) at a time and date to be determined as of Sunday afternoon.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)