“This is a sweeter victory than anything else.”

That’s how Parkland coach Al Haddad summed up his team’s fifth straight Eastern Pennsylvania Conference championship Saturday after beating Nazareth 1-0 in overtime.

While Haddad wasn’t going to compare his current team to previous teams, he was quick to talk about how satisfying this year’s win is and the fact that it feels a little more special than the others because of the adversity that the team faced during the regular season.

“This one’s even sweeter,” he said. “Because the last few we’ve been so strong and we didn’t face any adversity. This year, we had the streak broken. We had two losses and three players out with ACL injuries.

“These girls fought through so many things and have learned to rely on one another. We were talking about playing for that girl next to you and that’s what they did today. They were all determined to make someone else a superstar today and that was pretty cool.”

Haddad pointed to the streak of 70 straight wins against EPC opponents that was snapped early in the season against Emmaus. The team suffered two losses in the regular season for the first time since 2014 when it finished 14-2-2 through the regular season. That was the first of the five straight EPC championship years. The team also had a rash of ACL injuries that has three players out for the postseason run.

As difficult as the season was, Haddad said the problems that the team faced helped to make them a better team and is what makes this such a special team.

“We welcomed the adversity,” said out Haddad while wearing a big smile. “You don’t want three girls going down with ACLs, but we were looking forward to the day that we lost the streak to see, as coaches, what do we do and what kind of kids do we really have? Are they the kind of kids who are only great when everything is good or do they have that resolve and they showed it this year.”

In addition to five straight league titles, the Lady Trojans have won seven of the last eight league crowns and are looking for their third straight District 11 title. They open play in districts tonight against Liberty.

Throughout the season, Haddad said there was talk around the league that his team was going to have its league streak snapped. Many believed that Nazareth, who knocked off Easton and Whitehall, both higher seeded teams in the league tournament, would come out on top against Parkland in the championship game.

“It’s the best of the five wins, absolutely,” Haddad said. “We weren’t expected to win and we were even expected to lose today and we were in the middle of the pack all along. We didn’t have any first-team all-stars and this is a team, so that makes it special.”

The challenge now just comes down to keeping the streaks going in both the EPC and District 11. For sophomore Alexa Marsteller, who scored the winning goal in Saturday’s win over Nazareth, the pressure is there, but so is the confidence.

“It is a little bit of pressure, but my teammates give us confidence to just come out and play hard,” said Marsteller. “We’ll keep playing hard and the next two years, we’ll keep playing hard for all of the games we have left.”