The Freedom Patriots love to play an aggressive, fast-paced style of game. Against Parkland in the first round of the EPC playoffs, the strategy worked perfectly.

Ironically though, it was an outside game from Yasmine Herrera that provided the Patriots with a bit of a comfort zone in their 40-30 win over the Lady Trojans.

With Parkland (14-9) holding a 13-11 lead with five-minutes left in the second quarter, Herrera hit a three-pointer to put Freedom ahead and Jennifer Kokolus then scored two of her game-high 25 points to make it 16-13. The big turn came when Herrera would hit back-to-back three-pointers that seemingly took the wind out of Parkland’s sails, putting Freedom up 22-13 with 1:19 left in the second quarter. Parkland got a basket from Kassidy Stout in the final minute of the first half to make it a 22-15 game at halftime.

“On a night where we struggled to put the ball in the basket, for her to go back-to-back gave us a lead and it stayed at that sort of spread for most of the game. That was huge and it was huge that our kids found her when she had the hot hand,” said coach Dean Reiman.

Freedom (20-3) upped its lead to ten points in the third quarter, but seniors Claire Courter and Stout put Parkland on a 6-0 run to cut the game to 25-21 late in the quarter. Kokolus again came through, this time with a buzzer-beater to make it 27-21 after three quarters.

Through most of the game, Freedom seemed to be in control, but Reiman credited Parkland with playing them tough and, at times, taking them away from their game plan.

“We’re a small team and an athletic team, so we need to get to the rim, we need to get to the foul line so we can control the pace on the defensive side. That’s always our game plan,” pointed out Reiman. “But for a good majority of the game, Parkland actually took us out of what we wanted to do, so it’s a good game for our kids to look at and have an understanding of how that happened, so it doesn’t happen again.”

The up-tempo style did appear to take its toll on Parkland and Kokolus was able to cut to the basket through the fourth quarter and spent much of her time at the foul line where she hit 11-of-14 on the night and eight-of-10 in the fourth quarter.

“I practice fouls shots almost every single day. Especially in playoffs, it can be the turning point for us, so we need to hit the shots on the line,” Kokolus said.

The win over Parkland, combined with Bethlehem Catholic’s win over Pleasant Valley sets up the third meeting of the season between the two teams in the EPC semifinals. Freedom, seeded fourth in the EPC playoffs, and Beca split their regular season meetings.

“We don’t need to worry about who we’re playing, we worry about playing our game and doing what makes us successful,” said Kokolus. “We work hard in practice and we just let it show, no matter who we play.”

The game against top-seeded Bethlehem Catholic (19-4) is set for tonight at 7:30 at Easton Area Middle School and follows the other semifinal matchup between number-three Nazareth (19-4) and number-two Northampton (20-3), which tips off at six.