The Parkland girls soccer team may be one of the hardest working teams in the Lehigh Valley.

The Trojans don’t practice like most teams. They go at each other hard and don’t let up just because they’re teammates. That type of intensity has prepared the team for the postseason and has made life easier on them. That tenacity has helped them to back-to-back 8-0 wins over Liberty and Whitehall in the EPC Playoffs, earning them a spot in the conference championship.

“We are looking forward to districts and the state competition, and facing more competition,” said senior Rachel Medlar. “But it doesn’t really matter what happens, because in practice we really get after each other and we push each other. It really does prepare us. We won’t practice for two hours a day, we’ll go in there and practice hard and be out of there in an hour as long as we get the job done and work hard.”

Medlar scored one of the eight goals against Liberty and did the same against Whitehall. Medlar’s goal put Parkland up 6-0 and ended the night for the Trojans’ starters, who were replaced en masse after the goal. Emily Piston, Rachel Laird, Jenna Leonzi and Janelle Barna were the other starters who scored goals. Whitehall inadvertently put the ball into their own goal early in the second-half to give Parkland another tally.

The second unit came on to play much of the second-half and didn’t let up in intensity. Gabby Wilby and Lauren Madeira scored the last two goals of the game for Parkland.

“I was very proud of the second unit,” said Parkland head coach Al Haddad. “They went in there up 6-0 with 28 minutes to go and they not only kept them scoreless, but they put two more on the board. I think they gained a lot of experience today.”

Whitehall and Parkland ended their regular season schedules against each other less than a week before their meeting in the EPC semifinals, and Whitehall become one of just three teams to score a goal against Parkland, snapping a 15-game shutout streak.

“I don’t think that the goal that we gave up motivated our girls in any way,” said Haddad. “I think it was just knowing that if we can get out to a quick start, the gaps would open up for us and allow us even more time and space to play in.

“The girls just start to exude confidence after they get one or two and it’s just kind of like running downhill at that point and you can see it in them.”

Parkland will likely be without Becca Ventura, who left Tuesday’s game with an injury, and it’s possible that starter Rachel Laird could also miss Thursday’s game against Emmaus with an injury. Early in the game, Laird headed a ball and may have re-aggravated a detached retina injury, which she suffered over the summer.

Haddad sees the approach as needing to be much the same against Emmaus when the two teams meet in the conference finals on Thursday.

Parkland downed Emmaus twice in the regular season by a combined score of 7-1, but Haddad has long been a believer that Emmaus would become tougher to beat as the season went on.

“I called this back in the beginning of the year, that Emmaus was going to be a really difficult team once they got rolling, and they really are,” said Haddad. “There’s a rich tradition between Parkland and Emmaus, and Emmaus is going to be sky-high for Thursday night’s game.

“I think the secret to the game is us coming out, matching their intensity, getting an early one. And then, I think the same thing will happen for us, the gaps will open. If they come out with more intensity, then we could be in for a long afternoon.”

Medlar believes that her team’s experience could be a key for Parkland to beat Emmaus and head into districts as the EPC Champion.

“Emmaus is a really great team and they have great players,” Medlar said. “We’re going to go in hard and we’re going to go in knowing what we have to do to get that win.”

Even though Parkland has much more experienced players and is postseason battle-tested, Haddad doesn’t believe that Emmaus is at a disadvantage because of its youth.

“I don’t know if it’s a disadvantage [to have less big-game experience],” said Haddad. “Sometimes when you’re younger, you don’t know better, either. We’ve got a couple young kids that know nothing about the Emmaus-Parkland tradition,” Haddad said. “It could be that between [Emmaus coach Sarah Oswald] and I.

”We have to keep our emotions in check a little bit. My first year [as Parkland’s head coach], Sarah was a senior [at Emmaus], so I know what Sarah’s capable of. We just have to match their intensity.”