It turns out that the fourth time is actually the charm. After losing both regular season games and the EPC Championship to Parkland, the Zephyrs picked up a 1-0 win over their rivals in the semifinals of the District 11 Tournament.

"One out of four, I'll take it," laughed coach Dave Weitzman. "Obviously, we really would have liked to have beaten them last week in the EPC Finals, but tonight was a good win for us. Our girls worked hard in practice to prepare for this game and the girls went out there and executed beautifully tonight and the goal that Kourtney [Cunningham] had was just tremendous. "She's a heck of a player and I really enjoy watching her play and she earned every bit of that goal tonight, all of that hard work paid off."

Cunningham took a pass from Ivanna Jones and fired an absolute rocket past goalkeeper Becky Webster, who barely had any time to react because of how hard the ball was kicked.

It turned out to be the only goal either team would score, marking a very different type of game from the one where the teams were tied 2-2 after two overtimes and decided the EPC Championship on penalty kicks that Parkland won 4-2.

Weitzman has said in the past that he has leaned on Cunningham a lot this season for both her senior leadership and her play on the field, Jones and Taylor George also played big roles for Whitehall in the win over the Lady Trojans.

"Typically, we play a 3-5-2 and we told Ivanna going into this game 'look, we need you to play up top by yourself and you need to get possession for us and need to look for players underneath,' and she was tremendous," explained Weitzman.

As for George, the win provided some redemption as she was able to contain Parkland's Rachel Laird, who scored both of Parkland's goals in the last meeting between the two teams.

"It was kind of funny, the last time we played them in that conference final, we asked Taylor George to mark either Brooke Schutter or Rachel Laird and try to mark them out of the game and Taylor wasn't feeling that well that night and when we got home, I got a text message from Taylor, saying 'I'm sorry, I want another opportunity, because I didn't think I played well tonight,' remembered Weitzman. "She got her opportunity tonight and she stuck with Rachel Laird, who is a really good player, and with Brooke Shutter, who is tremendous. Everyone played well tonight and played their role and it's a great win for the Whitehall Zephyr family."

As things played out, George got her second chance when the two teams wound up meeting again in districts and this time, she walked off the field with a much better feeling than she did in the last meeting.

"I'm a lot happier. He gave me a job and I didn't really feel that I met the needs that he wanted me to, so I just wanted to really step it up and show him that what he put me to, I was up for and I really put my mind to it and just knew that I really wanted to step up and make it happen," said George.

After beating top-seeded Parkland, Whitehall now gets the chance to play for the District 11 Championship against second-seeded Nazareth. The Blue Eagles ousted Stroudsburg in the other semi-final game.

"Honestly, it means everything, not just to me, but to my team. We came out for this game so ready to beat them after three games of losing to them; we needed this one against them," said George. "Going back to my freshman year, they beat us in leagues, they beat us in district championship and we just knew what that feeling was, so we thought this is our time to shine and we're knocking them out."

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