Parkland came out firing recently against Whitehall, starting with 12 unanswered points, seven of which came from Maddie Siggins. The Lady Zephyrs failed to plead for mercy and instead put together an eight-point run of their own and by halftime, trailed by just four points. The second half – in particular, the fourth quarter – belonged to Whitehall as they went on a 7-0 run in the third and then a 9-0 run in the fourth to wrap up a 36-28 win over the Lady Trojans.

The win was the third straight for the Zephs and they stretched the streak to four straight Tuesday night with a 37-31 win over Allen.

Early on, Parkland (9-7 overall, 6-6 EPC) was right on target with every shot, including a pair of three-pointers by Siggins and Talia Zurinskas during the opening salvo of points. In the second quarter, The Lady Zephyrs started to chip away, and a three-pointer from Ella Laky, followed by a basket from Olivia Hines made it a 17-15 game. Whitehall (5-10, 5-5) was not able to climb any closer and were trailing the Trojans 21-17 at the close of the half.

“You have to credit Parkland because they came out and hit the big shots right away,” said coach Will Robertson. “They had us on our heels right away, but we stayed calm, kept our composure and just chipped away rather than just throwing up shots and not running our offense. That got us back into our groove.”

Hines sparked the Zephyrs in the second half by scoring five points during a 7-0 run to open the third quarter. Hines hit a pair of foul shots to tie the game and then was fouled while nailing a close-range jumper and converted the free throw to put Whitehall up 24-21 for their first lead of the night with 3:39 left in the third quarter.

“Olivia had a great game tonight. At the end when it was a close game, she had big rebounds because of how she was extending and going up and grabbing the ball with authority. She got a lot of those rebounds by force and that’s the kind of thing that doesn’t show up in the box score, but it was a huge part of our game,” explained Robertson. “A lot of the shots they were taking were contested and were one and done because everybody was boxing out.”

The combination of a struggling Parkland offense and the Zephyrs switching to a well-executed three-two zone held Parkland to just three points in the game’s final eight minutes while Laky rattled off seven straight points during a fourth quarter 9-0 burst to put the game away.

“It’s not easy to shut her down. She is a great player and a great kid,” said Robertson of his team holding down Siggins offensively. “Again, that was the players wanting to run the three-two zone and knowing where everybody is and moving on the flight of the ball and moving fast. The only way you can do that is to hustle and they did that.”

Siggins, who is averaging nearly 13 points a game this season was held to 10 and just one of those came in the second half. Zurinskas, who is Parkland’s leading scorer at just under 14 points per game, was held scoreless in the second half and finished with just seven points in the game.

After a slow start to the season, Whitehall is making a furious run at getting an EPC playoff spot. The final two spots in the tournament are being fought for by six teams. Emmaus (7-5) and Parkland (6-5) currently hold a loose grip on the two spots with Freedom (6-6), Whitehall (5-5), Pleasant Valley (6-7) and East Stroudsburg South (5-6) all grouped together.

“I told the team that this was an excellent win against a good Parkland team. It was fantastic, but this was not the last game of our season,” pointed out Robertson. “We have to keep building wins and we have some games to go and they can celebrate this one tonight. We had a great practice yesterday (Thursday) and we need that again tomorrow. It’s not over just because we played a good game tonight.”