While both Parkland and Pleasant Valley have strong defenses, the Trojans have some offense to go with it.

The Bears could use a little more offense, so they were relying on their defense when they came into Parkland for a Saturday afternoon game.

Parkland gave upits first goal to an EPC opponent this season, but escaped with a 3-1 win over Pleasant Valley in stifling heat.

Bears coach Chris Pachuta came in with a defensive-minded game plan that included trying to get a quick strike offensively and then just play defense in an attempt to slow down the Parkland offense. The plan was quickly foiled when Parkland struck early not once, but twice.

Josh Kiser and Andrew Luchansky both came up with early goals. Dawson Berger capped the scoring to give Parkland a 3-0 advantage going into the break. In addition to his goal, Luchansky assisted on Kiser’s strike.

Luchansky has been limited by a nagging injury and the early lead allowed Trojan head coach Patrick Birns to rest Luchansky with tough games coming up. The senior midfielder said there wasn’t anything special about the goal.

“I just saw an opening and I took the opportunity and was able to stick it,” Luchansky said.

“I think he only played about 10 minutes,” said Birns. “We played him a little in the first half and after we went up two, he didn’t go back in. He’s been playing really quick and simple. I thought the Easton game was not one of his better games, but he’s been a little banged up and then today we were able to rest him, so that should help us for the future.”

The Trojans had allowed just three goals in eight games this season, with all three coming on a two-game trip to Connecticut last week. Parkland split the two games, beating Green Farms 3-0 and then dropping a 2-1 decision to South Kent, who played at Parkland last season.

As usual, Jacob Varrato was strong in goal for Parkland. With just under 20 minutes to play in the game and a 3-0 lead, Birns pulled Varrato in favor of fellow senior Matt Lytle. Five minutes later, Pleasant Valley was able to work inside and freshman Jake Alles fired on goal for the Bears’ only goal of the game.

The combination of the heat and the early lead led Birns to substitute pretty freely throughout the game. Overall, he was happy with how the players coming off the bench responded to getting added playing time.

“I always feel that we’ve got a lot of depth and we have a big week coming up as well, so we did more subbing because we wanted to keep guys fresh,” Birns said. “It would have been nice if we were a little crisper with the guys that we subbed in, but that happens. I thought the first half we didn’t fall off that much. In the second half, we gave up the lone goal on a lack of communication, but other than that I was pretty happy with the effort.”

The loss dropped Pleasant Valley to 5-3-1 in both the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference and overall, while Parkland moved to 7-0 in the EPC and 8-1 overall. According to Luchansky, the hard work that the team is putting in is paying off and he believes that the Trojans just have to keep focused on what’s working to continue their run.

“We’re in a good spot,” noted Luchansky. “We’ve just got to keep preparing and playing well. If we continue that, we’ll be fine.”