Rivals Parkland and Emmaus met for the District 11 championship in boys soccer last Thursday at J. Birney Crum Stadium in Allentown.

The two teams are very familiar with each other, having played three other times this season, including in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference playoffs, with the two teams playing to a scoreless tie in the first meeting and then splitting the next two games. With a trip to the PIAA playoffs on the line, Emmaus came away with a 2-0 win over the Trojans last week.

“I don’t think we were the same team that we’ve seen in the last five games during the playoff run,” said Parkland head coahc Patrick Birns. “We came out a little bit in shock. We’re a young group, we really are, and maybe the moment was a little bit overwhelming.”

John Fritz scored a first-half goal for Emmaus to lead 1-0 at halftime and Stephen Groh added an insurance goal in the second half.

Parkland was unable to take advantage of a five-minute span where Emmaus lost starting goalkeeper Dylan Sosnow, who was given a yellow card. Backup Sam Cho came on for Emmaus, but the Trojans weren’t able to get any shots on goal against Cho.

Parkland had opportunities to score, but couldn’t quite find the net. Birns pointed to two specific moments in the game that kept Parkland from gaining any momentum.

“I think the one that went off the post was a big one, and then Peter [Kwakye-Ackah] had a good look and a guy slid in at the last minute and poked it out of bounds,” said Birns. “Those were the two that really changed the flow of the game.

“I thought we fought hard to the end. We made some adjustments, thought we would have a couple of good opportunities and put them away, but we made some mistakes and they put the ball away. We didn’t get off the line quick enough on the first goal. He’s probably offsides if we do. And the second goal was probably just a communication error.”

Birns believes that his team also faced some fatigue because of the long string of games that it played before reaching the district finals. As league champions, Parkland had to play extra games and didn’t enjoy much time off between leagues and districts.

Emmaus, which lost to Parkland in the EPC semifinal, had a few extra days to rest before coming into districts. Birns pointed out that neither his team nor Pocono Mountain East, the two teams that played in the EPC championship, will be going to states this season.

“The only thing is that we have to stop our league 10 days earlier and that really puts wear and tear on the kids,” he said. “It probably is a disadvantage for the champion to have played in that many games. You see that the two teams that played in the championship are not moving on to states, so I think that definitely is a disadvantage and I hope the league will reconsider that.

“Wrestling and football, the two things that are powerhouses in the state, they don’t have a conference tournament at the end of the year that fatigues the kids and I think it’s time that we do that in soccer, so that we can move on in states.”

Birns will lose eight seniors, five of which were starters, to graduation for next season. With a strong crop of underclassmen ready to step in, the Trojans don’t figure to have to do any rebuilding, and instead will likely just reload for next season.

“I’m really proud of these kids, from the seniors on down,” said Birns. “Everybody played hard, they worked hard in practice and did everything they could to get better and I think that it showed.

“We were a stronger team at the end of the season than we were coming into the season and that’s all because of the work these guys put in to make themselves better individually and as a team.”