Be prepared for round three this week as Parkland and Whitehall meet once again on the diamond, but this time the stakes are even higher.

With the game set for Wednesday afternoon at Whitehall, which unfortunately comes after Press deadlines, the Zephyrs, who earned the 5th seed, will be looking to advance to the semifinals of the District 11 AAAA tournament. Standing in their way will be the Trojans who come into the tourney as the 6th seed.

They’re also fresh off a 6-5 win over Pleasant Valley in the opening round of the playoffs, placing them in the rubber match between the Skyline Division rivals.

The two teams split the season series, with the Zephyrs winning the bizarre suspended game that took three days to finish. In that game they rallied for six runs over the final three innings to send the game into extra innings. Parkland won the previous encounter, riding the arm of Michael Jenkins who tossed a two-hitter.

Their pitching will most likely tell the story once again when they take the field. They have a team ERA of 3.02 this season. Matt Ziminsky leads the team with four wins, while Zach Gilbert and Alex Bruneio have each won three. They’ll need to be sharp on the hill to advance against the Trojans.

At the plate, the Zephs will bring an offense that’s seen an upsurge over their last four games. During that span they’ve scored 19 runs. As a team they’re batting .263 this season.

Austin Dreisbach leads the team with a .417 average. Matt Dobeck is hitting .338, while Gianni Sinatore is hitting .309 and Bruneio is batting .308. Bruneio also leads the team with 18 RBIs, followed by Dreisbach who has 16. Bruneio is also tops in home runs with three, while Sinatore leads the team in runs scored with 19.

Sinatore is one player who has a lot of postseason experience. He was part of the team that defeated Parkland to claim an Eastern Pennsylvania Conference Championship in 2013.

And he’s been on every postseason run since that time.

“We just got to be really focused on winning the game,” said Sinatore. “We have to go in and be confident, be confident in each other, and our coaches, and that’s how we’ve been all year.

“We just have to play our game and we’ll be all right.”

While they got out of the gate quickly, they hit a rough patch midway through the season. Some of that can be attributed to losing Bruneio, but Sinatore said they were able to rebound down the stretch and get back to doing the things they were able to do earlier in the season that led to their success.

“We really pulled it together this last five-game stretch and we got ourselves into leagues,” said Sinatore. “We got the rallies going, got our bats going, and our pitching has been pretty consistent all year.”

Sinatore is eager to play Parkland, noting that it’s always fun when they meet on the field.

“We just have to have more energy, more intensity, and I think we’ll be all right,” said Sinatore.