In high school softball, a little bit of offense can go a long way if you’ve got strong pitching and defense. That’s been the recipe in the early going for Parkland and coach Barry Search doesn’t see that strategy changing too much throughout the season. Parkland’s latest win was a 1-0 victory over Nazareth on Monday to move to 5-1 overall and 2-1 in the East Penn Conference.

The game’s lone run came when Olivia Ondrejca doubled to center field with a runner on first and two outs in the second inning. Megan Fenstermaker drew a one-out walk off Nazareth starter Samantha Gorkos. Ondrejca’s hit was one of just two that the Lady Trojans collected on the day, although they did draw three walks and had one batter hit by a pitch.

“I think defense is going to be the key, because we’ve been struggling hitting,” said Search. “That’s not a secret. I think defensively I’m really happy with the way they played.”

When asked about his team’s hitting and their offensive performance on their season opening trip to Florida, Search laughed and said “We didn’t hit down there either. We put runs on the board but a lot of that was started by errors or miscues and things like that. It wasn’t like we were ripping the daylights out of the ball.”

While Gorkos was dealing for Nazareth, the Trojans’ Kelly Dulaney struck out 10 batters and allowed just four hits and two walks in the game. The Blue Eagles got some runners on the base paths and had some chances, but stranded seven thanks to either Dulaney coming up with a big strikeout or the defense coming up with a big play to make up for any lack of offense against Gorkos.

“Our defense made key plays when they needed to be made,” pointed out Dulaney. “Sam [Gorkos] is a really great pitcher and we haven’t seen that yet, other than when we played in Florida. This league is really tough, so I think we just have to keep working on our hitting and we’ll get there.”

Nazareth threatened in the fourth inning when it put together back-to-back singles to open the inning. A perfectly executed bunt moved both runners into scoring position. Search had Dulaney intentionally walk Gorkos to load the bases and Dulaney responded by striking out Macie Sullivan and then getting Taylor Degan to ground out to second to end the threat, stranding three runners. An inning later, Nazareth put runners on first and second with nobody out, but Dulaney picked up two strikeouts and got a weak pop-up to first to get out of that jam.

Parkland’s offense put up a season-high 12 runs against Allentown Central Catholic last Thursday, but to be fair, the Vikettes have allowed 46 runs in just three games. Other than a struggling Central Catholic team, Search looks at the EPC Skyline Division and sees little room for error.

“I think this is the way it’s going to be all the time in this division, a lot of one-run games and it’s going to be tight,” he said. “It’s just a different kind of ball because when you look back on your season, one game may have been the difference. Every game is important and you don’t have that many, so you can’t squander them.”

Parkland hosts Whitehall (3-2, 2-1) to close out the week on Friday and welcomes Liberty (4-0, 3-0) on Monday to start next week’s schedule, which also includes games at Easton (2-1, 2-1) and Pocono Mountain West (1-3, 1-2).