At this time of the basketball season, you can look back and see exactly how a team came to be ranked where they are headed into the District 11 playoffs. If you look at Parkland’s spot as a four-seed in girls Class 6A basketball and look just below them, you see the Lady Bears of Pleasant Valley. The two teams met during the regular season in a game that was moved up a day to avoid a forecast that called for bad weather and was moved to Orefield Middle School and Parkland came away with a 55-40 win.

That win allowed Parkland to leap frog over the Bears into the four spot and push Pleasant Valley down to number five. The upside to that is that Parkland gets a district quarterfinal game closer to home and makes Pleasant Valley travel to Whitehall for Thursday’s game. It may not seem like a major issue, but it can make a difference and at this time of year, every little thing counts.

“I don’t know exactly how much of a difference it makes,” said coach Ed Ohlson. “Our fans travel around with us, so they would be there no matter where they sent us. It is nice though just from a logistics stand point to be able to play a little closer to home.”

In the win over the Bears a month ago, Pleasant Valley came out and couldn’t hit a shot. Pleasant Valley took the opening tip and spent the next minute putting up errant shots, pulling down rebounds and putting up another shot only to see it bounce off the rim, the glass or sail harmlessly through the air. On the night, Pleasant Valley shot just 16 percent from the floor and their rebounding prowess eventually faded thanks to the size of Parkland. The Trojans started with a 10-0 lead and grew that to 21 points in the third quarter before coasting to the win.

The fact that Pleasant Valley held a big, early lead in rebounding surprised coach Nadia Gauronsky. It’s likely that the Bears will come in looking to be more patient in their shooting and stay away from Parkland’s size down low.

“They have two big girls inside (Lindsay Berger and Kassidy Stout), so I thought we would have to get one good shot and be done,” said Gauronsky after the first game between the two teams.

This year, District 11 is allowed to send three teams through to the PIAA Tournament, which begins on March 8. A win over Pleasant Valley would send Parkland into the semifinals and guarantee them a chance to play for a spot in states with a win either in the finals or in the consolation game.

A win in the quarterfinals would match Parkland up against either top-seed Northampton or eighth-seeded Easton. Parkland split its two regular season meetings with Northampton and lost to Easton 46-45 in their lone meeting this season.

The 53-34 win over Northampton earlier this month was possibly the best game that the Lady Trojans had played this season. On a night when Northampton’s Jenna Rogers reached the 1,000-point plateau, Parkland held fellow 1,000-point scorer Victoria Keenan to just 12 points.

“I know it’s a cliché, but you really do have to take it one game at a time,” said Ohlson. “If we don’t beat Pleasant Valley, we’re done. If we beat them, we’re guaranteed to play in two more games and we have to look at each one of those as must-win games. When you start looking ahead, pretty soon you’re outside looking in.”

The Northampton-Easton game will follow the Parkland game Thursday at Whitehall High School. Parkland and Pleasant Valley are set for a 6 p.m. tip-off.