Some tough tests are coming early for Parkland this season. Their season opener brought a trip to play Lancaster Catholic (1-1), the defending District 3 Class 3A champions, and game two of the season was a conference game against Bethlehem Catholic (1-1, 1-0). The result was a split decision, with a 45-37 win over the Crusaders and a 45-39 loss to the Golden Hawks Tuesday night on Parkland’s home court.

“We’re just trying to establish the way we play basketball,” said Parkland head coach Wes Spence after the loss to Beca. “We played a very good team on Saturday. We played another very good team tonight and I think that’s good for us. We’re challenging our girls to see what we do well and to see where we have holes and where we need to improve. I think we got a chance to see a lot of those things tonight. We saw stretches where we played really well. We saw stretches where we struggled. For me, that’s what you want to have out of these games. You want to have a situation where you’re challenged and you have a chance to evaluate your team.”

One of the early surprises has been the play of sophomore Shelby Staib, who scored 19 points in the opener and added another six points off the bench against Bethlehem Catholic. Another sophomore, Kassidy Stout had 12 points in the opener and three in game two.

“Shelby’s doing a great job,” said Spence. “She started Saturday for us because we had someone out. We talked about when we went back to the original starting lineup, that her minutes probably weren’t going to change because she did some really good things on Saturday and we were really impressed. She had another really solid game tonight and we’re really happy with where she is with her development.”

Another sophomore, Claire Courter is doing well in her pursuit to fill a role coming off the bench. Against Bethlehem Catholic, Parkland (1-1, 0-1) trailed 25-21 with 1:25 left in the third quarter and Courter hit a key three-point shot to pull the Lady Trojans within one.

“She had limited minutes, but she hit a three and it was an important three,” said Spence. “She did the same thing Saturday. She had limited time, but when she had opportunities, she made the most of them. I think we have some young pieces that we can continue to develop and bring into the fold, and that’s what December is all about.”

The loss to Bethlehem Catholic showed that Parkland can play at different paces, with the first half being more of a slower tempo, while much of the second half was played at a more frantic pace with both teams transitioning up and down the court quickly.

Parkland trailed 16-12 with time winding down in the first half when Bethlehem Catholic’s Morgan Orloski hit a three-pointer at the buzzer to stretch the lead to 19-12. Parkland battled back and trailed by two to start the fourth quarter and had an opportunity to tie the game when Bethlehem Catholic turned the ball over, but Parkland couldn’t find the net to capitalize. Bethlehem Catholic went on a 7-0 run and controlled the game down the stretch. Emily Piston led all scorers with 16, while the Hawks’ Hope Brown had 12, with eight of them coming in the final eight minutes.

“You look at the first half, we missed a lot of shots and had a lot of contested shots in the second quarter,” said Spence. “But at the same time, we’d only given up 16 points until the three at the buzzer, so it’s hard to argue against that slower style of play. We did a really nice job stopping them and they did a really nice job stopping us and then they got that one at the end that stretched that out a bit. We hope that we can be either style and be successful, but we definitely had an easier time scoring in the second half when we looked to be more aggressive and had some transitions where we had some space to make things happen.”

Parkland is home against Stroudsburg (1-0, 1-0) Friday and then plays Scranton Prep in a nonconference game Saturday. They’re back home Tuesday against Emmaus (2-0, 2-0).