All season long the Parkland Trojans have been the best volleyball team in the area, as their No. 1 state ranking for a better half of the year showed. So it was fitting that in the inaugural East Penn Conference final, the championship would go to the top team. And the Trojans would not be denied that honor, sweeping the championship match against Emmaus by scores of 25-13, 25-22, and 25-18 last Thursday night at Whitehall high school.

"We've been working hard all season long and really wanted to win the first league title," said junior setter Kristin Krause. "It's an honor and we can always look back at it that we were the team to win the first new conference title."

It is the second straight year these two teams met in a conference final. But there were not different results as the Trojans took each of the last two league championships.

Like the last regular season match between the two teams almost two weeks ago, Parkland jumped ahead early with a dominating performance in the opening game. The Trojans raced out to an early 8-0 edge in game one, and kept pushing forward.

"Our serving and blocking, along with our defense was really good," said Krause. "Avery [Perosa] and Kristin [Keck] were all around the ball keeping it off the court, and our hitters were there to finish it off. We had everything working for us."

But in games two and three, Emmaus was right in it to the final point. Game two was back-and-forth, and Emmaus held a lead for successive points. But the Trojans tied it at 22-22, and scored three straight after that to close out the game.

In the final game, the two teams traded points once again, but Parkland showed its championship caliber and pulled away for a seven-point victory.

"In game one our serves and blocking were strong," said head coach Mike Krause. "But in game two we missed some serves and Emmaus capitalized on them and made some runs. We made some adjustments and were able to hold on."

Brooke Robertson led Parkland with 11 kills, 9 digs and 2 blocks. Also contributing were Siena Salvaggio (10 kills and 3 blocks), Avery Perosa (3 aces, 9 digs), Sam Webber (7 kills, 2 blocks), Erika Foose (7 kills) and Kristin Krause (32 assists 5 aces).

Even after all of the wins thus far, there are still more games to be played for the Trojans. Parkland will open district play on Thursday in the quarterfinals at home against . They need three wins to take back the District 11 title they were stripped of by Southern Lehigh a year ago.

"Any practice could be our last," said Kristin Krause. "As we saw last year, we can lose at any time. So we are definitely focused."