The regular season was not always kind to the Lady Trojans but in the end, they turned into a team difficult to beat and pounded their way to berths in both the East Penn Conference and District 11 tournaments. Parkland finished the season with a six-game winning streak to go 14-7 overall and 11-5 in the EPC, making it the number six seed in the conference playoffs with a quarterfinal game at Northampton (18-4, 14-2) Friday night. Parkland and Northampton split their two regular season games.

One of the final wins of the season came against up-and-coming Emmaus (12-10, 8-8) as the Trojans beat the Hornets 41-39 in a hard-fought game. The two rivals battled throughout the game, with the lead changing hands a total of 15 times. Neither team led by more than four points until Parkland went up 41-36 with 12 seconds left in regulation.

Parkland was led in scoring by sophomore Maddie Siggins, who finished with 12 points. Close behind were fellow sophomore Talia Zurinskas and senior Zoe Wilkinson, who both hit for 11 points in the win.

Emmaus senior Sarah Hoch opened the game hitting from all angles to score the first eight points of the game for Emmaus, boosting the Hornets to an 8-7 edge by the midpoint of the quarter.

As Parkland shifted its defensive focus to Hoch in the second quarter, it was junior Paige Inman that stepped up to nail a big three-pointer with 4:36 left in the quarter to regain the lead for Emmaus at 21-19. That came just after the Trojans had rallied from a 15-11 deficit and had taken a 19-18 lead when Wilkinson hit on a three for Parkland. By halftime, the Lady Trojans were up 23-22.

“In the beginning of the year we were a young team and I thought that we would be around in the end,” said Trojan head coach Ed Ohlson. “I told them two weeks ago that we are not young any more. They are all varsity players and they had enough games under their belt that they had to start playing and be accountable for their actions out there and needed to be better. The girls responded and we played some of our best basketball late in the year like we expected.”

In the third quarter, Emmaus again regained its edge and took a 31-28 lead on the strength of four points and five rebounds from senior Grace Oglesbee. Three of the rebounds came on the offensive end and were converted to six Emmaus points.

“We had some early stretches where we didn’t play particularly well but we battled through it,” Ohlson said. “There were a couple times when we could have gone south and we turned it around. We are going to need that in the next month to get through the gauntlet of playoffs.”

Parkland took the lead for good with 2:26 left to play when Wilkinson scored and then followed that basket with another on the next possession to make it 39-36. Talia Zurinskas hit a pair of foul shots with 12 seconds left, and Emmaus’ Taylor Griffith countered with a three-pointer just ahead of the buzzer to make it 41-39.

“We are going to have close games, although we didn’t have a lot of them during the regular season,” said Ohlson. “This was a good chance to see how we are going to react in those close games and the girls did an excellent job of responding to the pressure. You have to credit Emmaus because they played a very good game and I thought we played well overall even though a lot of our shots weren’t dropping, especially early in the game. Once we got on track and got the lead, we did what we needed to do and executed well.”

Parkland finished the season with a 45-24 win over Whitehall (7-15, 7-9) and a 50-23 win over Pocono Mountain East (6-14, 5-11). In the win over Whitehall, Wilkinson scored 13, while Siggins chipped in with 11. Zurinskas scored nine points in the Whitehall game and then came back to score a season-high 25 against PM East.

The season finale marked the fourth time this season that she has crossed the 20-point barrier during the season in which she averaged 14.3 points per game.