For the first 16 minutes of their matchup with rival Emmaus, the Lady Trojans played OK, but not great. In the last 16 minutes, they showed why they continue to be one of the top teams in the Lehigh Valley.

Holding high-scoring Emmaus to just 14 second-half points, Parkland walked away with a 62-39 win over the Hornets. The win moved the Lady Trojans to 3-1 overall and 2-1 in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference.

One might not have predicted the 23-point final spread at half time, when Parkland held just a 30-25 lead over Emmaus after the two teams battled back-and-forth. Emmaus came out strong and held the lead until there was just 3:27 left in the second quarter. Devyn Anderson hit a couple free throws to put Parkland up 24-22, but that was a key point in the game.

Anderson was at the line because Emmaus standout and Auburn recruit Kiyae White picked up her second foul and went to the bench. Including Anderson’s free throws, Parkland went on an 8-0 run in just under a two-minute span.

As usual, Parkland used a balanced scoring attack to pace its offense. Rachel Medlar finished with 17 points. Kassidy Stout had 12 and Shelby Staib came off the bench to chip in nine points. White had 18 for the Lady Hornets.

“It’s awesome, that’s my word for it,” said Parkland head coach Wes Spence. “We’ll take advantage of what’s given to us. I know that every time that Emily [Piston] shot the ball people are yelling ‘shooter’ and they make sure they have hands up on her and make it difficult, but that opens up some shots for Rachel Medlar.”

In the third quarter, Parkland came out on fire and quickly started stretching its lead as Stout, Staib and others stepped up to make things tough on Emmaus. One of the keys was Stout taking advantage of the foul trouble for White and Bri Hart, who both had two first half fouls. The sophomore forward took over the scoring for Parkland.

“Kass has done a great job for us this year and she played varsity as a freshman, so we have high thoughts of her and it’s good to see her have a good night,” said Spence. “She opened the season with a big offensive night and then had a couple games where she wasn’t as dominant in the scoring department, but was still doing all of the other things defensively. Tonight, that was the matchup that we had and she was able to finish around the rim.”

Stout scored 12 points in the season opener against Lancaster Catholic, with others picking up the scoring in the next two games. Overall, she’s averaging just under eight points per game this season.

“The guards do really well bringing the ball up and dishing it out, and if we don’t have anything, we kick it out for the open shot. If they miss it, hopefully, the posts are there to get the rebound,” said Stout. “During half time, we got together and said ‘this second half, we really need to step it up.’ Everyone picked up each other and we came out, pushed hard to get the win.”

With all of the balanced scoring, Spence pointed out another factor in the win over Emmaus that he was particularly proud of from the effort his team put on the court.

“The number that matters is 14,” said Spence. “That’s the number of points that we gave up in the second half, and that’s a great effort. You don’t expect that every night and Emmaus is a high-scoring team, so that to me was the most impressive part.

“I wish I could say that I gave them some amazing motivational speech, but it was little things,” said Spence. “You have to credit them for making plays in the first half. In the second half, from a defensive standpoint, we just talked about some of the things we wanted to do to make the interior looks a little more difficult and to try to limit how they were getting to the paint. It was just a matter of doing some of the things that we wanted to that Emmaus was beating us to in the first half.”