Wins haven’t been easy to come by for the Parkland boys basketball team.

But just a couple of days into 2017, the Trojans earned their most impressive win of the young season.

Parkland (4-5 overall, 2-4 in EPC) had doubled-up Northampton late in the second quarter with a 24-12 lead, was ahead by as much as 31 points in the third quarter before holding on to beat the Konkrete Kids (3-4 overall, 1-4 in EPC), 55-35, on Tuesday night.

“It’s a big one,” said Parkland’s Sam Iorio after posting a game-high 17 points. “We got off to a rough start. For us to come out on our first day back to school after the break and to get this win, it’s big for us. Hopefully it can get the rest of the season rolling. We had a big win in the Christmas tournament. It’s there. We just have to put it together.”

Parkland was coming off a solid win over Lower Merion (55-50) in its holiday tournament, while Northampton had won three straight, including Salisbury’s holiday hoops tournament.

But without two Northampton starters, Aidan Elwood, who scored 30 points in the Salisbury tournament championship game, and Joseph Tocci, Tuesday’s matchup was of little competition.

Once Parkland implemented its full-court press in the second quarter, the tides started to turn and help balloon an 11-8 lead to double digits in a matter of no time. The Trojans had scored 12 of the first 13 points in the second quarter, and Northampton scored just four points in the frame.

Eight turnovers in the second quarter alone helped Parkland score in transition.

“We don’t always press that hard,” Iorio said. “But when we feel that we are quicker and a team doesn’t handle pressure well, we hop right on there. We do whatever it takes to win. We felt that was an area that we would have an advantage and it showed early.”

The defense continued to shine in the second half. Parkland’s offense, led by Iorio in the third quarter, did its part as well. An Iorio floater early in the third quarter capped the Trojans’ 7-0 spurt to the frame. He shortly thereafter hit a dagger 3-pointer and a put back shot to put Parkland in complete control at 43-14. Iorio then exited the game, shortly followed by the rest of the Trojan starters.

“I think it’s definitely one of our best defensive games,” Iorio said. “I think we’ve had multiple good defensive games. But I think we play our best when we play really good defense because it leads to easy offense for us. And then the whole team gets going.

“We just wanted to come in and get a win. That’s all we focused on. It’s all about wins at this point.”

Other than a 20-point loss to Hazelton to open the winter season, Parkland’s four other losses were by a combined 18 points.

“We lost pretty much every game by less than five [points],” Iorio said. “It was just being experienced at the end of the game, and not having that experience yet kind of hurt us a bit. I think we’re real close. It’s all about peaking at the right time.”

Michael Ruisch also scored in double figures for Parkland with 10. Northampton got 11 from Jahmari Austin and 10 from Mike Torres.