Throughout the season, the Parkland girls basketball team went through some on-the-job training and when clutch time arrived, the Trojans were ready to work.

A young team combined with a tough early schedule saw the Lady Trojans lose their first two games of the season to Northampton and Nazareth. At that point, there was no way of knowing that Parkland and Northampton would be a thorn in each other’s side throughout both the regular season and the postseason.

After the slow start came four straight wins for the Trojans, leading to another difficult part of the schedule against Central Catholic and Pocono Mountain West. Still not up to the level of those teams, Parkland lost both games but came back with four straight wins to get to 8-4 on the season.

Another three-game slide left Parkland at a crossroads and head coach Ed Ohlson challenged his players to shake off their young team label and put together a winning streak that would get them into the playoffs, hopefully with deep runs that would finish in states.

“We had not quite found our identity at that point, and we still had some girls who were unsure of themselves and just needed to be more aggressive,” said Ohlson. “I thought that by that point they had achieved enough on the court that they should be able to step up against the better teams.”

The team responded to the challenge and in a rematch with Central Catholic, knocked off the Vikettes in a defensive 22-18 game. Wins against upstart teams Emmaus and Whitehall continued to send a message and senior Mo Olenwine returned from what was initially thought to be a season-ending injury to give Parkland an emotional lift it needed to win at Northampton.

The win and the return of Olenwine, albeit on a limited basis, gave the team even more confidence to ride through the late part of the season. In all, Parkland put together six straight wins to finish the season and finish at 14-7 on the year.

“Mo was a big part of our team all season, whether it was working with young players and cheering them on while she could not play to getting back on the court earlier than we thought she would,” said Ohlson. “She made an impact on the court for us late in the year when we needed it most. Overall, the seniors (Olenwine, Paige Spang and Zoe Wilkinson) all did an excellent job of helping the younger players to adapt and getting us to play the way we needed to play.”

Parkland not only qualified for districts but came into the East Penn Conference playoffs as the number six seed and faced Pocono Mountain West in the quarterfinal round. The Lady Trojans traveled north and beat the Lady Panthers to move into the semis. Waiting for Parkland was Northampton in a game at the PPL Center. Parkland’s quest for a conference title ended with a 52-42 loss.

In districts, all Parkland had to do was beat Pocono Mountain West for a second straight time, upset a previously undefeated Easton team in the semis and then come back to knock off Northampton 30-29 to become district champs, with Olenwine hitting a last second three-pointer to seal the win.

The run was impressive to say the least with the Lady Trojans moving from a fifth seed to having gold medals put around their necks.

Parkland and Northampton were on a collision course for a fifth meeting in the semifinal round of states, but both teams were eliminated in the second round. Parkland fell to Pennsbury 37-28 to end their season.

The future looks bright though for the Lady Trojans even with the loss of three key players in Olenwine, Spang and Wilkinson. The top two scorers on the team – Madi Siggins (10.5 points per game) and Talia Zurinskas (13.3 PPG) – are both sophomores. Freshman Delaney Chilcote played in every game this season and improved all along the way and will be a bigger part of the team next season.

“As much as we will miss Paige and Zoe and Mo, they helped to get the younger players ready to step in and play more minutes for us,” said Ohlson. “Overall, we will still lean on some younger players next season, but they will at least have more varsity experience and that is a lot of what we lacked coming into this season.”