Through two regular season games, the Whitehall Zephyrs had a tough time with the Parkland Trojans, losing by a combined score of 7-0.

In Tuesday night's Lehigh Valley Conference semifinals, Whitehall finally got on the board against their division rival, and battled for nine innings, until a high-chop single in the bottom of the ninth gave the Trojans a 3-2 win and a trip to the conference finals.

The Zephs had to have somewhat of an oh-no moment when the Trojans came out and scored a run off starter Jeff Charles in the bottom of the first inning to grab an early lead. Whitehall didn't show any panic and came right back against Parkland and their starter, Connor Higgins, in the top of the second.

"Even though we struggled against them this season, we thought we could beat them," said Whitehall coach Shaun O'Boyle.

Matt Melosky got a hold of a Higgins pitch and took it out to right field in the fourth inning as Whitehall grabbed the lead over Parkland for the first time in the three games that the division rivals played this season. The home run seemed to give Whitehall momentum and that momentum increased when Charles retired the Trojans in the bottom of the fourth with the Zephyrs hanging on to their 2-1 lead.

After Higgins shut down Whitehall in the top of the fifth, the Parkland bats went back to work and they tied the game on an RBI single to right off the bat of Brad Vasilik that scored Hudson Rabenold from second.

Higgins would last just one more inning, but Charles continued to battle through the rest of the game. In the ninth, Charles seemed to lose a little steam and Parkland put runners on first and second with nobody out. Zach Miller laid down a perfect bunt to the left side, looking to move the runners, but was able to leg out abase hit to load the bases for senior Zach Merkle. The Parkland catcher chopped a base-hit just to the right of the second base bag to give Parkland the walk-off win and a berth in the LVC Finals against Emmaus.

The Zephyrs had some chances, especially considering that Parkland committed five errors in the game. In the top of the ninth, errors helped the Zephyrs to put runners on first and third with one out. Alex Flynn, who came on in relief for Parkland in the seventh, was able to pitch around the miscues and work out of the jam to keep the game tied going to the bottom of the ninth.

"We had some chances, but we couldn't get the big hit to capitalize and they did," explained O'Boyle, whose team is now 16-5 overall on the season as they prepare for the District 11 Tournament.