The Parkland High School baseball team picked up an important, 4-0 road win at rival Emmaus on April 20, and then two nights later the Trojans more than doubled that score in taking down the Green Hornets 10-0 in five innings of an Eastern Pennsylvania Conference game last Thursday night at Parkland High School.

With the victory, the Trojans won their fifth game in a row and eight of their first nine overall to improve to 11-1 overall, and 10-0 in the EPC.

“We have really emphasized the division championships over the years because to win them you need to consistently play well over the long haul,” said Parkland head coach Kurt Weber. “Going into this two-game set with Emmaus, we knew it would basically decide the division championship. A split was the minimum we were looking for; getting both locked up the division for this year. That also gets us into the league playoffs and the second win being our eighth in the conference also qualifies us for district playoffs.”

After scoring four runs in the entire seven innings of the first meeting with Emmaus (10-3, 8-2), Parkland had four runs through the first three innings of play in game two, and then broke the game open with a six-run, bottom of the fourth, highlighted by RBI doubles by Blake Barthol and Luke Meehan.

That duo plus Bryce Ratliff finished with two RBIs. Bo Barthol went 2-for-3 with two runs scored.

“The first game was a tight game and we executed on defense and our pitching was great,” Weber said. “[Thursday] we caught them at a good time. They were dealing with some injuries and once we took the lead they had to save some of their pitching for upcoming games. We played well on defense and put the ball in play on offense. Our pitchers threw strikes and we played well in the field.”

Parkland’s offense has been on a roll, scoring runs in a variety of ways, and Weber likes knowing he doesn’t need to rely on just one or two guys for power or hitting.

“I like that we showed some different styles to score runs,” said Weber. “We’ve been working on keeping the pressure on the opponent whether with the bats or speed or executing bunts, etc. In the third inning, we showed some power with a couple of extra-base hits and in the fourth, we played some small ball with a couple bunt base hits to break it open.”

Starting pitcher Dylan Duborg appeared for the first time all year and earned the win, going four innings and allowing just four hits while striking out two.

“Dylan [Duborg] is a sophomore that we expect great things out of, but he’s been dealing with an arm issue,” Weber said. “This was his first appearance of the year. He is mostly known as a power pitcher, but being his debut and with the weather being an issue he mixed speeds and showed some quality off-speed pitches. I’m definitely happy to see him out on the field and happy for him to get the first one out of the way. I would expect him to get better and better with each outing.”