The Parkland and Emmaus girls lacrosse teams met for the third time this year when they squared off last Monday night in the District 11 semifinals at Northampton High School’s Al Erdosy Stadium.

Ten first-half goals, and a stout defensive unit, guided the Trojans to a 14-9 win over the Green Hornets in the district semifinals.

It was the Trojans’ third straight win over Emmaus this season.

“As coach [Dawn Cipolla] has been telling us, it’s extremely hard to beat a team three times,” said senior Parkland defender Alex Borrelli. “We were able to beat them twice. We know that’s how it goes. A lot of times teams get beat the third time around. We had to stay focused. All week at practice we were working really hard. Basically, it was a mindset that helped us win this game.”

Lexi Rice opened up the scoring for the Trojans just a little over a minute into this one. After an Emmaus goal to tie it at 1-1, Sarah Stagaard and Ana Emrick put their team back in front for good. Emrick had all four of her goals in the first half, and sophomore Cam Barnett tallied three of her four goals in that same time period to take a commanding 10-3 lead into halftime.

“I thought we started off really strong, which was really important to our success,” Borrelli said. “It was really exciting for us to play Emmaus. We love playing them. They’re obviously a big rival for us. A lot of us are friends, so it’s kind of a bittersweet moment. We’re sad for them, but we’re super-excited to move on.”

Parkland (16-5 overall) looked like they had no rust after waiting through a weather delay that lasted over an hour and playing its first game in a week after winning the league title.

“They’re the number one seed for a reason,” said Emmaus head coach Nancy DeBellis. “They may not have won districts last year, but they won our league the last couple of years and are a great program. They were the better team tonight.”

The Green Hornets (12-9 overall) outscored the Trojans 6-4 in the second half, but the game was decided much earlier.

Cat Gaffney had two of her three goals in the final 25 minutes, and Barnett and Stagaard each had one.

Parkland will now face Easton in the District 11 finals Thursday at Northampton High School. The Trojans beat the Red Rovers earlier this month 18-10 in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference final.