Nobody knew it at the time, but a 1-0 loss to Whitehall on October 24, 2014 turned out to be the last time that Parkland lost to a District 11 opponent for almost four years. The Lady Trojans won 70 straight games when they were paired up against a team from their own district.

That streak came to an end last week when Emmaus beat Parkland 2-1 at Memorial Field at Emmaus High School.

The win was the first time Emmaus beat Parkland under head coach Sarah Oswald, who is in her fourth season. Oswald and Parkland coach Al Haddad have a great respect for one another and hugged when they greeted each other after the game. At the time, Oswald was unaware of the streak that her team had snapped.

“It just feels good to get a good win and this is a team that has consistently come after us and has had the better side of the draw and we were able to put our best effort on the field,” said Oswald, whose team lost to Parkland in both regular season meetings and two postseason games last season.

Emmaus was able to get an early goal that helped their cause. Grace Eisenhard sailed a free kick from 25 yards out over the head of goalkeeper Zia Reed to put Emmaus up 1-0 just seven minutes into the game. Kellie Reith put Emmaus up 2-0 with a goal with 15:07 left to play in the first half.

As the first half was winding down, Parkland kept pressure on the Emmaus defense and Louise Gottwald fired a shot past goalie Alexa Ryan to make it 2-1 as the momentum shifted dramatically to the Parkland side.

In the second half, Emmaus took more of a defensive stance as Parkland kept constant pressure on Ryan with shots on goal. The Hornets were able to fight off the pressure as both teams had good opportunities that they couldn’t finish.

“You have to congratulate them,” said Haddad. “They’ve been getting tougher and tougher every time that we play them and today they played a great game and had a good plan that they executed well. Hats off to Sarah and her team because they played a great game.”

With the streak broken, Parkland simply went about starting a new streak, which they currently have at two. They beat Northampton 4-3 and then shutout Nazareth 3-0 since the loss to Emmaus.

Haddad looks back on the streak and is impressed by how long they were able to keep the streak alive considering the pressure that it put on his players to keep it going year after year.

“I don’t think that everybody realizes what an accomplishment that was,” noted Haddad. “To have the pressure on the players and the bull’s-eye on their backs that they’ve had because of how well we’ve played, was incredible and they handled it well. To go for almost four years without losing to a District 11 opponent was an accomplishment that I doubt had ever happened prior to us doing it and we can be proud of that.”

It’s likely that the players have circled Oct. 3 on their schedules, since that’s when the two teams will meet again, this time at Parkland. There’s a lot of soccer between now and then, including hosting Liberty today and then playing at Pocono Mountain East and at Whitehall over the next week. For Haddad, it’s simply back to winning soccer games.

“Just like we couldn’t get caught up in thinking about keeping the streak going, we can’t get caught up in the fact that it’s over,” said Haddad with a broad smile. “You just get right back up and play hard each and every game and hopefully, there will be a new streak to talk about down the road.”