The Parkland High School boys basketball team has been on a roll of late and there are no signs of slowing down. Before the district opener last weekend, the Trojans had won three of their last four games by an average of 20 points and the other victory came against defending state champion Central Catholic by three.

Even after a 10-point win over Nazareth in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference championship game nine days before, there was no lingering effects or signs of a letdown.

Parkland returned to the court last Saturday as the top seed in the District 11 Class 6A playoffs and took care of business in the quarterfinal round, downing eighth-seeded Freedom 70-38 to advance to the final four and guarantee two chances at a berth in states.

“After a big win, you can’t look ahead,” said Parkland senior Kharan Joshi, who scored 13 points against Freedom. “And that was the whole point, we wanted to come here, take care of business and move on to the next.”

It was the fifth straight win for Parkland, four of which came in the postseason.

With the game tied at 10-10 midway through the opening quarter, the Trojans (19-7 overall) scored 16 unanswered points to take control of the game, leading 23-10 after one. It looked as if they would go into the locker rooms ahead by double digits at halftime, but a Patriots 3-pointer at the buzzer kept their deficit under 10, trailing 35-26.

Parkland outscored Freedom 35-12 after the break and blanked the Patriots (10-13) in the fourth quarter.

“Right now, we’re pretty confident. We’re looking forward to the next couple games,” Joshi said. “We want to play the best teams. The nonconference schedule we had was tough; we didn’t win all of them, but it helped us a lot.”

Nick Coval led the way with a game-high 19 points and was the focus of the Patriot defense. Will Meeker and Jesse Ruisch both added 10 points. Freedom game planned around stopping Coval and Meeker, Parkland’s leading scorers and biggest offensive threats, but unsung heroes Joshi, Ruisch and Matt Ray stepped up when they needed to most.

“All of us stepped up, the other three players and Matt Ray off the bench,” Joshi said. “We all stepped up, made shots and forced them out of the triangle-and-two.”