Whenever Parkland and Emmaus square off in baseball, you can expect something unexpected to happen. Come playoff time, that weirdness can be amplified.

The Trojans had everything going for them when the two teams met in the first round of the East Penn Conference playoffs on Saturday. Emmaus was riddled with injuries and had lost six straight games. Parkland had its ace on the mound and appeared ready to advance.

For the Trojans, things didn’t go anywhere near how they were scripted. Emmaus’ number-two pitcher, Braden Waller, looked every bit of an ace and the Parkland bats weren’t able to get going against him. Meanwhile, Emmaus took advantage of everything it was given and left the field with a 3-0 win, eliminating the Trojans from the conference tournament.

“We had a walk, an error and then a double and that was the game right there,” said Parkland head coach Kurt Weber. “And, Waller was tremendous. He’s a pretty good pitcher. They had the big hit and we didn’t. The home run was just icing on the cake for them.”

The home run came off of the bat of Justus Darville, who lifted an offering from Adam Smith out to right field. The home run to lead off the top of the seventh truly was icing on the cake for Emmaus, who scored two runs in the fourth and then relied on Waller’s pitching to carry them through.

Just as Weber described, a one-out walk followed by an error and then a two-run double by Darville resulted in two fourth-inning runs that gave Emmaus a lead.

Parkland hitters weren’t able to get solid contact and Waller struck out six batters, with most of the strikeouts coming on pitches up, or even just out of the strike zone.

“When panic sets in a little bit and you start pressing, that’s going to happen,” said Weber of his team’s impatience at the plate. “I would credit more the lefty on the mound than our approach. We weren’t great today, but he was better and you have to credit him. There’s no excuses from us.”

Parkland missed scoring opportunities in both the second and third innings. In the second, Joe Webber worked a walk and after appearing to be picked off, not only reached second with a stolen base, but went to third when the throw from first was went into the outfield. Emmaus brought the infield in, but a shot foul pop to right and a strikeout allowed them to play back with two outs. Waller got the final out of the inning on a fly ball to right.

In the third, Parkland’s Phil Schoch singled down the first base line to open the inning and Jeremy Piatkiewicz followed with a base-hit to left. Blake Barthol looked to sacrifice the runners up a base, but wound up with a bunt single to load the bases with nobody out. A pop fly to center was the first out of the inning and Matt Ervolina flew out to right and Schoch was thrown out at the plate attempting to tag and score. After Barthol’s bunt single, Waller retired 14 straight batters to finish the game.

Parkland now will have a week off before it starts play in the District 11 tournament next week. It’s an unfamiliar place for the Trojans to be since Parkland has advanced at least to the conference semifinal every season since at least 2007 in the old LVC.

“I think the thing that we have in our favor is that the next game, whoever we play, is going to have a little time off, too,” said Weber. “I never like playing teams that have been playing. Sometimes, you sit there in the pigtail round and you’ve been sitting around and it’s tough. We’ll figure it out and if we don’t, it will be a short spell in districts.”

Smith and Ervolina were named to the EPC first-team all-stars, while Barthol and Webber were named second-team all-stars in the conference. Smith is 4-0 on the season with a 1.22 ERA, while Ervolina hit .481 and led the team with 22 RBI in 19 games this season for the Trojans. Barthol hit .460 in 18 games and Webber hit .407 and was second on the team in RBI with 17.