Pitching and defense win championships and unfortunately for Parkland, Whitehall had an exceptional day in both areas to down the Trojans, 5-2 in the Lehigh Valley Conference Championship.

Pitcher Elliot Mortimer provided the pitching and third baseman Jeff Charles provided one big defensive play after another to boost Whitehall (19-2) to the championship and the top seed in the District 11 Tournament.

The loss dropped Parkland (19-3) down to the three seed, just behind Pocono Mountain East, who won the Mountain Valley Conference in an upset over Stroudsburg.

Early on, it looked like Parkland would handle Mortimer easily. Tyler Graeff hit a shot down the third base line to plate two runs and give the Trojans an early 2-0 lead. Unfortunately, Mortimer settled in after that and the game took on the same look as Parkland's win in the semi-finals over Liberty when the Trojans scored early and then had to hang on and survive a late rally. This time, Whitehall's offense found a way to get to pitchers Gabe Mosser and Alex Flynn and chipped away throughout the game.

Parkland looked to be mounting a rally in the sixth when they had two runners on, but Charles made two sparkling defensive plays that robbed Trojan hitters of base hits. Throughout the game, Parkland hit the ball hard and scattered nine hits, but couldn't get the big hit when they needed one to put runs on the board outside of the first inning.

"If you told me before the game that we'd get nine hits off him [Mortimer]," said Parkland coach Tony Galucy. "I'd have felt pretty darn good about it. We got hits, we just didn't get that extra one."

Galucy was happy with his team's performance and credited Whitehall with doing what they needed to do to win and collect their first LVC Championship.

"He was behind on some counts and still threw breaking balls," said Galucy of Mortimer. "The biggest thing is that he was throwing them for strikes and he didn't walk anybody. That was the big difference."

Graeff, Hudson Rabenold and Brad Vasilik each collected two hits for the Trojans against Whitehall, whith Graeff collecting a double and two RBI in the game.

Coming into this year's LVC Tournament, the Trojans had captured four of the last six championships and were favored to grab their fifth this season. Meanwhile, Parkland last won the District 11 Championship back in 2009.

"I don't think this hurts us too much heading into districts," explained Galucy. "We're still a good team and we'll be tough to beat."

Prior to the game, the LVC announced its 2013 all-star team, which features three Parkland players. Pitcher Alex Flynn, catcher Damin Muth and outfielder Brad Vasilik were all named to the conference first team. Pitcher Tyler Duff and first baseman Graeff were named to the team as honorable mentions.