It’s hard to believe that the second game of the season can have a playoff feel to it, but when it’s part of the Parkland and Emmaus rivalry, it’s much easier to believe. With filled bleachers and a raucous atmosphere, the two teams met for the first time this season and played fiercely until Parkland was able to leave the field with a key 3-2 win.

In the first half, Emmaus put solid pressure on goalkeeper Zia Reed, who fought off some early shots. Eventually, the Emmaus was able to get one past Reed when Lily Schmitt hit from 15 yards out with 29:05 left to play in the first half. The lead gave the Hornets added enthusiasm and they continued to continue pressuring Parkland (7-0 overall, 7-0 EPC).

“We stress on-the-foot, off-the-foot and I have a signal [two hand-claps] to remind them to do that and I don’t remember a time when I was doing that six minutes into the game already,” said Parkland head coach Al Haddad. “We were just dribbling for no reason through the midfield and that made things worse, because they were dominating the midfield.”

Slowly, Parkland began to mount some pressure. As the Trojans worked a ball down toward the goal, the ball flew toward Emma Schock, who was able to put it past goalkeeper Alexa Ryan to tie the game with 10:29 left in the first half.

Parkland regained the momentum, but just that quickly, the pendulum swung back toward Emmaus when Maddie Brown took a pass from Schmitt and put herself into position to launch a shot on goal that Reed was unable to get to and Emmaus again went on top with just 4:22 left in the first half.

Parkland changed up its strategy and utilized faster, crisper passes in the second half, providing answers to some of what Emmaus was doing to them in the first half.

The result was more pressure on the Emmaus defense and eight-minutes into play, Alex Marsteller put a shot past Reed to again tie the game, this time at 2-2.

The two teams played evenly throughout much of the rest of the half until Parkland put the ball deep into the Emmaus zone and near the mouth of the goal.

As players scrambled, the ball went off the chest of Parkland’s Ava Schaller and past Reed for the go-ahead goal.

Emmaus (6-2, 5-2) was unable to mount any challenges over the final few minutes of the game and fell for its first loss of the season.

“Maddie [Amadio] crossed it in from the corner and I just ran at it and it hit me and I fell forward and it went in,” said Schaller of the goal, who explained that the win was a big one for Parkland. “It was definitely big, because we don’t want to lose on our home field, first of all. And it’s a big win for early in the season. We’re doing well – better than last year – so we’re feeling good about it.”

Schaller continued her goal scoring prowess for Parkland, scoring three against Northampton last Friday and adding another Monday against Nazareth to move her into 25th place on the Parkland list of all-time goal scorers.

“When you get a Parkland/Emmaus game, it’s great. It felt like a playoff game tonight,” said Haddad. “I can’t remember a time for a non-playoff game where my bench was standing just off the touch line with 20 minutes to go and the girls fed off of that. They have a tremendous love for each other.

“We didn’t play our best and a lot of it is because of what Emmaus did. There’s no taking anything away from them. They made us look like we weren’t playing well. They wanted it a little more, they won every 50-50 ball in the first half, they probably won half of them in the second half, so we have to fix some things. To get this win with that type of effort against us takes us a long way.”

The Trojans went on to win their next five games, beating Northampton 43- on Sept. 6; Nazareth 4-2 on Sept. 11; Pocono Mountain East 4-0 on Sept. 13; and Whitehall 3-2 on Sept. 16.

The Trojans are the last undefeated team remaining in District 11 Class 4A and the EPC.