Parkland’s hopes of winning a league baseball title came to and end Tuesday in their third meeting of the season against Emmaus.

After shutting out the Hornets twice in April, No. 2 seed Parkland met up with the No. 3 Hornets in the semifinal round of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference playoffs and the Hornets came away with a 9-6 victory.

“We caught them early in the year when they were a little beat up,” said Parkland head coach Kurt Weber. “We knew they’d be better than what we saw early in the year. Beating a good team like that three times is awful hard to do, but we had the opportunity. We just didn’t make plays.”

Heading into the fifth inning Parkland had whittled the Hornets’ early 5-2 lead down to 5-4 and seemed to have momentum, but Emmaus got its leadoff runner on base and the Trojans made some defensive mishaps that helped the Hornets extend their lead when the inning could have been over.

Jaden Gallagher’s bloop single with no outs started the inning. Two Parkland errors helped the Hornets score one run. Another run scored on a fielder’s choice and two more came in on one Noah Hogan’s two-out single that included a throwing error. Emmaus left the inning with a 9-4 lead.

“The pitchers, they kept us in the game enough,” said Weber. “We just didn’t make enough plays.”

Starter Owen Lehr allowed five hits and earned five runs in three innings, while James Miskanic pitched four innings and gave up four hits and no earned runs.

Most of Lehr’s earned runs came on one swing of the bat. Emmaus’s Braden Waller launched a ball over the right field fence for a three-run home run in the third inning that gave his team a 5-2 lead.

Parkland got seven hits off Hornet starter Colin Foley, who pitched 6 1/3 innings, coming out for 2/3 of an inning in the fifth then reentered to pitch the final 2 1/3.

Bryce Ratliff had a big day for Parkland, going 3-for-3 with a pair of RBIs. His first-inning triple knocked in Blake Barthol and tied the game at 1-1. Ratliff then scored on Luke Meehan’s single to give Parkland a 2-1 lead. Meehan was 2-for-2 with three RBIs in the game.

Parkland got a pair of runs in the third inning when Taiki Horiguchi, who also made a spectacular catch in left field early in the game, led off with a bunt single and Barthol followed it with an RBI triple. Ratliff singled to drive in Barthol and get his team within a run at 5-4.

Parkland’s final run came in on a Meehan sacrifice fly in the fifth inning.

Baserunning errors hurt Parkland in two innings. A runner was picked off in the third inning trying to steal second before Foley began his motion to home plate. Another runner was doubled up on a fly ball in the seventh inning.

The Trojans, who have three starters out with injuries, will look to play a cleaner game when they enter next week’s District 11 Class 6A playoffs. They will be the No. 3 seed with a likely first-round match up against Nazareth.

“It really doesn’t matter who we play, it’s how we play,” said Weber. “We just have to play better and make plays.”