The Trojans certainly didn't play their best game of the season Tuesday in the Lehigh Valley Conference semifinals, but they did just enough right to beat Whitehall 3-2 in nine innings and earn a berth to the finals for a rematch against Emmaus.

The Parkland defense, which is normally reliable, made five errors in the win over Whitehall, but thanks to strong pitching, they led to just one unearned run.

"We kicked the ball around a lot today, but we'll come out and be better," said Parkland coach Tony Galucy. "We're not a team that can't field, so I don't know what happened today."

The two teams traded runs, with Parkland taking an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first and Whitehall coming right back to get an unearned run against starter Connor Higgins. The run was the first one scored by the Zephyrs against Parkland this season after the Trojans shut them out by a combined score of 7-0 in their two regular season games.

Neither team did any further damage until Matt Melosky lifted a long home run to right field for Whitehall, putting them ahead 2-1. Whitehall was hoping that Charles could shut down the Trojans the rest of the way, but Brad Vasilik slashed an RBI single that drove in Hudson Rabenold from second base in the bottom of the fifth as Parkland tied the game 2-2.

The key for Parkland was its pitching depth. Higgins was lifted after six innings in favor of a fresh arm in Alex Flynn, who was waiting in the wings to take over. Flynn went on to give Parkland three shutout innings, while Whitehall's lesser depth meant that Charles had to stay in the game. The Trojans finally got to him in the ninth as he started to get low on fuel and his team's defense didn't do him any favors.

"Connor did what we wanted him to do for us today and we have enough pitching that we didn't have to push him," said Galucy.

Charles was in danger from the start of the inning when the Zephyr defense sputtered and Jeff Strisovsky got to second on a two-base error to open the inning. Zach Miller attempted to bunt him over to third, which worked even better than anticipated, as Miller made it safely to first with a bunt single.

The Zephyrs then elected to intentionally walk Chris Rabasco to set up a force at any base, but Zach Merkle ruined that strategy when he bounced a single through the drawn-in infield to plate Strisovsky and send the Trojans to the finals.

"I got that high hop that took it over the pitcher's head and at that point, I knew it was going through," said Merkle. "We didn't play well defensively today, but our pitchers kept us in the game, just like they always do and we were able to come up big today."

Ironically, while Parkland capitalized on the one error that Whitehall made, the Zephyrs could have capitalized on two Parkland errors in the ninth. The miscues gave Whitehall the chance to grab a lead by giving them runners on the corners with just one out. Flynn got a big double-play ball off the bat of Adam Miller to end the threat.

Higgins and Flynn combined to strike out 10 hitters in the game for Parkland.