For a while Tuesday night, it looked like Parkland was going to pick up an easy win over Easton when the Trojans jumped out to a 3-0 lead.

As it turned out, that was part of the problem that led to Easton mounting a second-half comeback. Parkland eventually put the game away on a goal by Ava Hanna with just 45 seconds left to pick up a 4-2 win.

“We haven’t played a full 80 minutes this season,” Parkland head coach Al Haddad told his players following the game. “I told them that we can’t get out to an early lead and then feel like we’re playing downhill, because teams can come back on you. We saw that tonight. We got into bad habits in the second half and next thing it’s a one-goal game.”

Brooke Schutter was zeroed in on the goal for Parkland. She scored her first goal with 36:13 left in the first half when Easton goalie Christina Finelli came out to challenge Schutter and lost when the senior forward worked around her and put the ball into the back of the net.

About 20-minutes later, Schutter went to the top of the net for her second goal of the night.

As it turned out, the second goal wasn’t one that Schutter necessarily thought would make it to where she wanted it to be.

“I had a lot of pressure on my back, so I was just trying to turn and get a quick shot off and aiming to go high,” she said.

With Parkland up 2-0, Schutter again went to work 10-minutes into the second half when she played a rebound that left Finelli out of position and again found the back of the net with a solid shot.

Throughout the game, Easton double teamed Schutter and marked her with physical players, but the plan didn’t work as the senior finished the night with three goals.

“We’re used to me being doubled by the centerbacks and the middles, so me and the two other outside forwards switch up to sort of decrease the pressure in there, but it still gets physical,” said Schutter.

Soon after, Haddad lifted starting goalie Julia Buchman in favor of Zia Reed, as he often does when things are going well. Shortly after coming in, Reed was the victim of bad luck when Alicia Rodriguez fired a desperation shot from 25-feet out that carried to the far side of the net and over the head of Reed. With renewed momentum, Easton put on more offensive pressure and with 17:34 left to play, Ashley Lucas fired a laser that shot past Reed and put the Red Rovers within one.

“That’s what happens when you let a good team get some momentum going,” said Haddad. “All of a sudden, they’re making passes and firing tough shots at you to get themselves back into the game.”

Hanna put the game away with her goal, preventing Easton from doing any further damage. Jenna Leonzi, Helen Flynn, Kat Olenwine and Madi Warminsky picked up assists in the game.

Haddad prides himself on using his full roster, but was unable to get some younger players into the game, preferring instead to leave the core players on the field.

“It wouldn’t have been fair to those players to bring them off the bench cold and face a team with a lot of momentum,” he said. “Then, you have to tell those players to hold onto a one-goal lead. I wanted the players who created the mess to clean up the mess.”

Schutter believes that the team has a lot of its own momentum going and that being 8-0 while not playing to the level they believe they can reach is a plus. She also believes that the team can and will improve through the second part of the season.

“There have been games where we’ve come out slow in either the first or second half, so I agree that we definitely haven’t played a full 80 minutes yet, but that’s the goal for late in the season,” she said. “The fact that we’re not there yet is something to work on and improve ourselves at doing.”