With all their offensive options, Whitehall boys basketball coach Jeff Jones knows that Parkland can come at you in waves.

And when Whitehall trimmed the Trojans lead to 38-30 early in the third period after Logan McGinley followed his own miss for the bucket, one of those waves hit. The Trojans answered with an 8-2 run to push the lead to 46-32.

However, Whitehall struck back, getting a pair of free throws from Jackson Buskirk and a three from Charles Hudson to slice their lead back to single digits at 46-37.

But just a few minutes later the Trojans delivered another 8-2 run as they closed out the third quarter with a 54-39 advantage over their Eastern Pennsylvania Conference rivals.

From that point, they unleashed the knockout punch in the final quarter, getting points via the drive, the drive and dish, and the perimeter jumper, and outscored the Zephs by 14 for the eventual 77-48 victory.

Whitehall has now dropped four games in a row, all to EPC opponents. They currently sit at 9-7 overall and 5-6 in the EPC.

Jones knew it was going to be a tough task to take down the state’s fifth ranked 4A team. And with a team that doesn’t have many deficiencies, every possession counts.

“You have to value the ball,” said Jones. “They’re going to shoot a really good percentage, so you have to shoot a really good percentage as well to have a chance.”

Whitehall began the game only scoring on one of their first five possessions. After knotting the game at 3-3 on a Mikey Esquilin trey, Devante Cross found Kenny Yeboah underneath for a score, part of a 9-3 run for the visiting Trojans.

In that opening period, Sam Iorio was hot, sinking a jumper from beyond the arc, a midrange jumper from the floor, as well as converting a couple of foul shots. He finished the game with 11 points.

Jones also knew they had to get to the foul line and believed they didn’t get enough opportunities at the charity stripe, something they had to do against Parkland to give themselves a chance.

Parkland’s size and strength posed a problem, but Zach Gilbert, Hudson and McGinley grabbed their share of boards against the Trojans.

“I thought for the majority of the game I thought we competed pretty well,” said Jones. “Offensively, I’m disappointed.”

It was Kyle Stout who tipped the scales for the Trojans. The lanky wing player was dropping threes, connecting on jumpers in the lane, and getting to the foul line while driving. He finished the game with 23 points.

Jones felt their offense bogged down too much. H said they made two or three passes on some of their possessions, and then their offense broke down which led to some freelancing.

“Against a good team like this you can’t run your offense like that, as individuals,” said Jones. “We need all five guys working on the same page.”

When they finally got the game into single digits in the third, the key was to stop that red wave.

“You get a big basket and you try to get a stop,” said Jones. “Stops against them are really difficult to come by.”

Whitehall’s pace wasn’t as swift as it has been in recent games. Jones said they were looking to play up-tempo, but not out of control.

“If we have something in transition, push it up,” said Jones. “If not, we need to back it out and we need to get a good shot. For whatever reason, we weren’t able or capable of doing that. That’s a little bit disappointing.”

Esquilin and McGinley topped Whitehall scorers with 10 points each, while Kayden Walschburger dropped in eight and Hudson added seven.

Jones knew this was going to be a tough stretch once they defeated Allentown Central Catholic as they were heading into the meat of their EPC schedule.

“There’s going to be bumps in the road in this league, that’s for sure,” said Jones. “And we’re in a pretty good bump.

“We have practice tomorrow and we’ll try to make practice fun. Do something to get everybody involved. We’ll talk about Central Catholic toward the end of practice.”