The seniors on the Parkland girls soccer team have no idea what it’s like to not finish the season as the conference champion. For four straight seasons, Parkland has taken home the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference championship, grabbing its fourth in a row with a 2-1 win over Easton at J. Birney Crum Stadium last week.

“It’s amazing,” said senior Jenna Leonzi, who scored Parkland’s first goal of the game late in the first half. “You can never really expect to win a championship each year that you’re in high school, so it’s just fantastic. The best part is that we’ve all worked so hard and we’ve been able to do all of this as a group.”

Parkland, now at 21-0 overall on the season, struggled to get going against the Red Rovers and fell behind 1-0 when Ashley Lucas scored for Easton almost halfway through the first half, taking advantage of a corner kick that may have been aided by bright sunlight shining in goalie Julia Buchman’s face.

“It was a little bit of a factor,” said the senior goal keeper. “But it wasn’t a major factor. It was a good shot and they played it well.”

About six minutes later, Caroline Finelli fired a shot off the post that caromed to the front of the net, but didn’t cross the goal line before Parkland was able to clear the ball.

It wouldn’t be until there was just 4:37 left in the first half until Leonzi put Parkland on the board off an assist from fellow senior Helen Flynn.

The tough first half came on the heels of what coach Al Haddad called their worst 40 minutes of soccer in their semifinal win over Emmaus. In that game, the Hornets outplayed Parkland in an attempt to climb back from a 3-0 deficit.

“They scored off that corner, but Jenna’s equalizer at the end of the first half was huge for us,” said Haddad. “We weren’t very sharp early on, but that sort of got us back on track and gave us something to build on.”

It didn’t take long for Parkland to grab the lead in the final 40 minutes when senior, Brooke Schutter took a pass from Gabby Wilby and made it 2-1 in favor of the Lady Trojans.

The goal was the 31st of the season for Schutter, who was named the EPC’s Most Valuable Player.

Easton (16-4-1) continued to play tough soccer against Parkland, but wasn’t able to get many good looks at the goal and when it did, Buchman was able to turn the shots away.

“A lot of credit to Easton for how much pressure they put on us and how hard they played,” said Haddad. “They played a lot of very purposeful long balls in that first half and it was a real problem.”

Parkland has been without junior Ava Hanna, but Wilby and Katrina Olenwine have stepped up to share the job of replacing Hanna, and have handled the pressure well.

“We’ve had girls step up, and that’s what it takes to keep winning,” said Haddad. “You always have to be able to endure things like injuries and have the players who fill those spots step up.”

With their undefeated record intact, Parkland enters the District 11 tournament as the top seed and will host Freedom Thursday in the district quarterfinals. Parkland downed Freedom 5-0 back in September as part of their current stretch of 66 straight wins against EPC opponents. The Trojans are looking to make it two straight District 11 titles and a return trip to states.