The Whitehall girls soccer team didn’t waste any time putting their mark on the league playoffs.

The defending district champs scored within the first minute of play, and then rode that quick strike for an eventual 3-0 win over visiting Liberty in the opening round of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference Championships.

The win put them into Tuesday’s semifinals against Pleasant Valley, where the Bears’ Erin Sharpe scored a second half goal to give the PV a 1-0 victory to knock the Zephs out of the tournament.

In the league opener Ivanna Jones wound up scoring two of the Zephyrs goals, adding to her stellar senior season.

The quick first goal was initiated by Kylee Cunningham who deftly worked a through ball, defeating two defenders before finding Jones who passed it back to Kylee Cunningham, who then completed the give and go to Jones for the score.

“It was a nice little combo there,” said Jones.

Scoring an early goal was something head coach Dave Weitzman discussed before they took the field against the Hurricanes.

“One of the things we talked about in the locker room prior to the kickoff of the game, was we didn’t really want to have a slow start,” said Weitzman. “We wanted to come right out and set the tone, and thirty-eight seconds later Ivanna Jones gets a great goal off a through ball from Kylee, so we were really pleased with that.”

While that goal gave them the early lead, he felt they didn’t sustain that same urgency after that initial tally.

“I thought we started to take our foot off the pedal a little bit right after that goal and I was a little bit worried,” said Weitzman.

That led to some chances for Liberty, prompting Weitzman to make some adjustments after a time out.

The second goal came off a corner with Jones heading it past ’Canes keeper Jessica Becker.

Weitzman said that Taylor George had a great ball that set up the opportunity for the header by Jones.

Taylor George scored the final goal for the Zephs, giving her three tallies on the season. She knocked the ball into the side netting, completing the Zephyrs scoring for the game, all of them coming in the first half.

It was their first meeting against Liberty this season and they dictated much of the action in the first half.

However in the second half, with the wind at their backs, the ’Canes started to press the action.

That’s when goalkeeper Shianne Reimer made some big saves to preserve the shutout. She had to survive a few corners, and made some sprawling saves with Liberty players clustered around.

Weitzman said they may have gotten a little complacent in the second half, but they knew the situation and what they needed to do at that point in the game.

“I think we understood what our job was, and that was to defend,” said Weitzman. “We’ve been in this position before, we have a lot of returning players from last year’s team that know how to win games and kill the time.”

He said having a veteran team eases those situations since they’ve been through them before and know how to keep their composure.

One of those veterans is Jones, and she’s looking forward to the next round where they’ll have the opportunity to advance to the finals.

“It’s really nice to get this first win,” said Jones. “We don’t want to let it get to our heads. We’ll focus on the next game right away.”