With the first month of the high school basketball season coming to an end, the Lady Trojans are fitting the pieces together very nicely and are off to a 4-1 start overall, with a 3-1 record in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference’s Skyline Division.

As expected, teams have keyed on senior Emily Piston, but they’re quickly finding out that Parkland has more weapons and can beat them with other players. To her credit, Piston hasn’t tried to force scoring when it’s not there, deciding instead to pass off to other players to give them opportunities. Another senior, Rachel Medlar leads the team in total points with 42, while Piston is close behind at 39.

Between the two upperclassmen are two sophomores who have stepped into bigger roles with the team. Kassidy Stout and Shelby Staib made their presence known in the season opener when they combined for 31 points against Lancaster Catholic. Over the five games, they’ve now combined to score 80 points to help fill a scoring hole for Parkland.

“We like our young players,” said Spence after a recent win. “They are going to keep getting a good amount of minutes and they’ve done what we needed them to do in terms of stepping into the lineup when we need them.”

There have been a few glitches, as expected, with a few more turnovers than Spence wants to see in some games, but they’ve also found ways to overcome any issues that develop and haven’t allowed any bad habits to develop.

The next big conference game on the schedule comes up on Tuesday when Parkland hosts Northampton, who like the Lady Trojans, have a number of players who can score. Northampton has started 5-1 overall and are 3-1 in the EPC, with their only blemish coming against undefeated Nazareth.

In a win over Whitehall last week, Parkland got off to its usual fast start and put the Zephyrs in an 8-2 hole that they were never able to dig out of. To their credit, Whitehall attempted to battle from behind, but Parkland held them off and picked up a 40-35 win, with Stout scoring nine points and pulling down seven rebounds. Junior Devyn Anderson finished with eight points, while Medlar had seven.

“We’ve had some little things that we need to clean up,” said Spence. “But overall, I think you have to be happy with how our team has played and how we’ve been able to fill spots on our team that we didn’t have full answers for coming into the season.”

Parkland will play two games in a tournament at Boyertown High School this week before Tuesday’s EPC showdown with Northampton.