Make it nine straight Eastern Pennsylvania Conference championships for the Parkland girls soccer team. The top-seeded Trojans fought their way past second seed Allentown Central Catholic Saturday at Emmaus’ Memorial Field, picking up a 2-1 win and stretching their record to 20-0-1 heading into districts.

For nearly 20 minutes the teams fought to gain solid momentum only to have it shift to the other side and then back again. Central Catholic was attempting to defend an attack by Parkland when they were called for a handball in the box, giving the Trojans a penalty kick. Parkland called upon senior captain Lauren Ervin to take the kick and she positioned it just over goalie Armani Brickhouse’s left shoulder as the Trojans took a 1-0 lead.

A strong wind that blew from sideline to sideline was difficult in the first half and became more of a problem in the second half as it picked up in intensity and also shifted and was blowing more into the faces of Parkland’s offensive players. While Mother Nature affected both teams, playing into the wind became more difficult and put Parkland slightly back on their heels.

“In the first half, we did a good job of controlling more stuff and then the beginning of the second half, I think the wind just hit us and Central just started pounding us a bit,” said Ervin. “In my head, I was thinking that we can’t lose our heads and we can’t get all jumpy. We also couldn’t play in the air because the wind was too hard.”

As Parkland adjusted and worked the ball on the ground to avoid the wind, the momentum slowly came back to the Trojans and sophomore Ellie Kocher connected with senior Aristea Gougoustamos to give Parkland a 2-0 lead.

“I knew that she [Kocher] was going to pass it to me and at the last second, ” said Gougoustamos. “She gave a perfect ball, and I made the shot. I have to give all the credit to her. She did a great job and I just had to finish it.”

Parkland fought off a renewed charge from the Vikettes, who put pressure on the Trojans defense, but Central Catholic junior Meredith Eisenmann found an opening in the middle of the field and put it to good use as she maneuvered into position and put a shot into the top left corner of the goal to make it a one-goal game with just 4:16 left in regulation.

With the wind preventing the Trojans from getting any long kicks to clear the ball, Central Catholic looked for a game-tying goal, but the defense held for the Trojans as they won the game 2-1 and move into districts as the top seed in 4A.

“It never gets old,” said Parkland coach Al Haddad, who just finished his 18th season leading the Trojans. “They’re a really good team and we finished in a tie with them during the season, so we knew it was going to be a close game.”

By virtue of being the top seed, Parkland will have a total of nine days off between games to prepare for districts where they will face the winner of the game between fifth seed Northampton and fourth seed Nazareth.

“We’ll start by taking a few days off because there is nothing better for the legs than rest. After that, we’ll start by doing some fun things to start to get active again and late next week start getting after it harder and maybe scrimmage against ourselves Saturday,” said Haddad.

Before the game, the EPC first-team all-stars were announced and included Parkland senior Joanna Chou and sophomore Ellie Kocher. The league MVP was awarded to Bethlehem Catholic’s Summer Hill.