During the regular season, Parkland downed Emmaus 2-0, helped by a goal by Jess Wetherhold with just eight seconds left in the first-half.

The two teams met again in the District 11 quarterfinals and Parkland knew that it wasn't facing the same team that it beat a month earlier, but the Trojans were still good enough to come out on the top side of a 1-0 win.

"They were a much improved team, and had been playing better soccer than they were the first time that we saw them, so we knew facing them wasn't going to be like facing a typical ninth-seed team," said Parkland coach Al Haddad.

Parkland was controlling the vast majority of the action and peppered Emmaus goalkeeper Katie Thomas with shots, while sending others just wide or over the net. They missed chances on numerous occasions, but finally were able to convert a corner kick when Jill O'Connell found herself staring at a rebounding soccer ball with nothing between the ball and the net. O'Connell drove the shot, past a diving Thomas for the only goal of the game.

"Their goalie was turning away a lot of shots, but to be honest, we should have scored at least a couple of goals in the first-half, we just didn't take advantage of the chances that we had," said Haddad.

While Thomas was turning away shots for Emmaus, Parkland goalkeeper Becky Webster spent most of the game being the only Parkland player on her side of the field. Early in the second half though, Emmaus changed strategies and was able to mount some offense, but Webster was up to the task and made five saves of her own. Before long, the Parkland defense stiffened and the ball barely returned anywhere near Webster for the rest of the game.

"They're a good team and we weren't able to do much against them," admitted Emmaus coach Rob Rooney.

The win sends top-seeded Parkland into the semifinals and a date with fifth-seed Nazareth, who knocked off fourth-seeded Pocono Mountain East in the quarterfinals, winning on penalty kicks to pull off the upset. The two teams met during the regular season, with the Trojans picking up a 3-1 win over the Blue Eagles.

Haddad knows that this meeting will again be a tough game and is taking nothing for granted.

"I'm sure they'll come at us," said Haddad. "They're going to be looking to knock us off and they've got some good players, so we have to play well and have to finish our chances better than we did against Emmaus."

The semifinals were supposed to have been played Tuesday night, but Hurricane Sandy pushed the game back to 5:30 Thursday night at J. Birney Crum Stadium in Allentown. Second-seed Stroudsburg and third-seeded Whitehall will meet in the other semifinal, with the two winners meeting to decide the District 11 champion Saturday at a site to be determined.