For a team that focuses on defense, the Parkland girls soccer team showed a whole lot of offense to win the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference championship, downing Pleasant Valley 5-1 last week in a game played at Nazareth’s Andrew S. Leh Stadium. The win gave the Lady Trojans (20-1) their second straight conference title and their fourth in the last five seasons.

The five goals came from five different players, with junior Devyn Anderson assisting on two of the goals. Parkland got the scoring underway with 27:28 left in the first half when Michaela Cohick took a pass from Anderson and deposited it past goalkeeper Renee Milos.

At halftime, coach Al Haddad gave his players a checklist of things to do in the final 40 minutes and the Trojans hit all of the points and erupted for four goals. Brooke Schutter, Emily Piston, Becca Ventura and Rachel Laird all scored, with Anderson, Jenn Guetzlaff and Ava Hanna providing the assists.

“We hadn’t faced Pleasant Valley this year, so we didn’t know anything about them, so the first half was just about feeling them out a little bit to see what we had to do to make corrections,” said Haddad. “We gave the girls three things to focus on in the second half and they just exploded and did exactly what we asked them to do. They’re a good team, but we played really well tonight.”

Anderson’s two assists were big for Parkland, but she noted the play of the rest of the team as being a key in beating the Lady Bears.

“The whole team played really well today and we knew we had to come out and play well,” said Anderson. “We played to feet, we got in the flank and we just kept shooting on goal and made some good shots.”

As Parkland has done this season, Pleasant Valley relied on defense. The Bears came into the playoffs as the seventh-seed and knocked off number-two Easton and number-three Whitehall by identical 1-0 scores. Anderson admitted that she and her teammates didn’t know a lot about Pleasant Valley, but they were impressed by how the Bears played in the postseason.

“They played great against Whitehall, so it was great getting the chance to score that many goals against this team. They’re a good team, but we played really well,” said Anderson.

Pleasant Valley never gave up and with eight-seconds left to play, Maliyah Jones snuck a shot past Olivia Schantz to avoid the shutout, which ended a streak of 17 shutouts in a row for Parkland. Schantz had come in for starting senior goalie Regan Allsop early in the second half as part of Haddad’s approach at preparing goalies to be ready to play. Schantz has shown her abilities throughout the season when she’s gotten a chance to play, which bodes well for her to take over for Allsop next season.

“We had an all-conference goalkeeper [Becky Webster] in front of Regan for two years, who we pulled so Regan could get the experience,” said Haddad. “Olivia could be starting for any other team out there, she’s a heck of a goalkeeper, so she deserved the opportunity to get in there.”

The win gave Parkland the top seed in the District 11 Class AAA playoffs and a first-round bye. The Lady Trojans will now host rival, and ninth-seeded, Emmaus Thursday at 3:30 in the district quarterfinals. The Lady Hornets picked up a 2-1 win in overtime at Stroudsburg on Tuesday to advance. Parkland is looking for its first district title since 2012 when it beat Whitehall 2-1 in overtime in the district finals.