It might not seem like Emmaus gave Parkland much of a battle in the Lady Trojans 4-0 win over the Hornets earlier this week. When you look deeper though, coach Al Haddad believes that the game provided his team with a tough challenge that it responded well against.

“That was our biggest test of the season,” said Haddad. “They came out and played us. I have a high level of respect for coach Oswald for playing us even-up and letting the chips fall where they may. They’re a great team and they’re only going to get better. They’ll be a force to deal with in districts,” said Haddad.

The first half of the game really was a struggle for Parkland, but Brooke Schutter was able to start the scoring when she broke free down the middle of the field and fired a hard shot on goal that was deflected by goalkeeper Jess Harnett. Schutter didn’t stop after launching her shot and continued the play by reacting to the deflection and putting the ball into the net for a 1-0 lead half-way through the first 40-minutes of play.

Another rebound goal, this time from Rachel Laird with 27:52 left to play in the game gave Parkland the momentum that it needed to spark it to a third goal three-minutes later when Schutter scored her second of the game.

“That seemed to give us the initiative to play better and we were able to open things up from there,” said Laird about her goal. “It was a tough game, but when we went up 2-0, I think it gave us the edge that we needed and we were able to get a couple more goals.”

Parkland’s final goal came with 15:25 left to play when Rachel Medlar scored to put the Trojans up 4-0.

Laird’s goal turned the tide of the game and Haddad sensed a change in his team after they went up by two goals.

“At that point, we were just sort of running downhill,” Haddad said. “To have that two-goal edge after how tough they were playing us gave us the breathing room that we needed and things just got much easier at that point.”

At 12-0 in the league, Parkland has just about wrapped up the Skyline Division title, but Laird pointed out that the team has a lot of work to do before it can call it a successful season.

“We’re really happy with how the season has gone,” said Laird, who is a senior this year. “But we want to make a mark in the postseason. We don’t even just want the league or districts, we want to do well in states and that’s been our goal since the start.”

Secondary to what lies ahead is the fact that Parkland has a 38-game unbeaten streak in the regular season. The streak started with a tie against Nazareth back on September 23, 2014. Their last loss was three days before that against Northwestern, who they face in a non-conference game on Monday. Parkland also had a 14-game shutout streak coming into the season, but lost that in the season-opener to Emmaus in a 3-1 win.

“The girls do talk about going undefeated and how special that would make the season, but we just have to take care of business,” said Haddad. “If we come out and do our job, we’ll wind up with a successful season and that’s where the focus needs to be. We got the shutout streak out of the way in the first game and I told them after that game, ‘well, we don’t need to worry about that anymore.’”