Last season, the Parkland High School boys basketball team came within one win of a state championship. This season, the Trojans have a chance to finish off that goal as they qualified for the state tournament in their Saturday with a win in the district quarterfinals.

Sixth-seeded Parkland used a strong third quarter to push its lead into double figures and take care of the third seed, Liberty, 64-47 last Saturday in the District 11 6A quarterfinal at Easton Area Middle School.

The victory not only earns the Trojans (15-9 overall) a spot in the district semifinal round Wednesday night against the seventh seed, Allen, at Liberty High School, but it clinches a berth back into states, with four teams from 6A making it this year.

Parkland was looking to continue its 2024-25 campaign after an early exit in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference Tournament. They achieved just that with the win over the Hurricanes.

It was a low-scoring first quarter as the two teams got their feet underneath them after a long break from their last game. The Trojans led just 7-5 after the opening period. They broke a 3-3 tie on a Blake Nassry layup in the middle of the first and led the rest of the contest.

Parkland held an 18-11 advantage at halftime and stormed the Hurricanes (19-6) out of the locker room by making its first seven shots of the third quarter and finished with a 23-13 quarter to go on top 41-24 heading to the fourth. The Trojans remained ahead by double figures the rest of the way.

Nassry finished with a team-best 26 points and drained a high three 3-pointers. Scott Bauer recorded 15 points. Nassim Adams tallied nine points and TJ Lawrence contributed six points. Jude Ruisch added four points and both Ryan Kearney and Javian Porter rounded out the scoring with two points each.