The Emmaus and Parkland girls soccer teams have met three times this season and the three games have been decided by just two goals.

Unfortunately for Emmaus, it came out on the short end two games while playing Parkland to a scoreless tie in the other contest.

The latest setback came in the championship game of the East Penn Conference playoffs, with the Trojans picking up a 2-1 win over the Hornets.

On a windy night at the Zephyr Sports Complex, Parkland took advantage of the high winds to pick up two quick goals and jump out to a 2-0 lead over Emmaus just under eight minutes into the game. Even though they fell behind early, the Hornets didn’t back down and found their footing, picking up the pace of the play and holding Parkland at bay the rest of the first half.

Emmaus’ Maddi Woodward put a shot on goal with 17:24 left in the first half, but goalkeeper Teresa Gonzalez made a diving stop on the ball to prevent Emmaus from getting on the board. Parkland mounted a move down field, but Emmaus goalkeeper Alexa Ryan make an athletic save, going high in the air to knock a shot off of a penalty corner up and over the crossbar.

“We were ready and focused,” said Hornet head coach Sarah Oswald. “I think that we just weren’t able to match the level of intensity that their forwards brought to us. In the first game that we played them, it was sort of smooth sailing to start and then they came up. Credit to Parkland for their attack and being able to find a couple goals early.”

In the second half, it was Emmaus who came out looking to take over the game and picked up a quick goal just over three minutes into the half.

On the Hornets’ first penalty corner of the game, Grace Eisenhard fed Gianna Albanese, who beat Gonzalez with a shot to make it a 2-1 game. Shortly after that, Eisenhard took a free kick and put it off the crossbar, just missing a shot to tie the game.

Parkland had a free kick just a couple minutes later and the kick was headed toward the goal, but Ryan again made an athletic stop to keep it a one-goal game. Ryan came up big again when Ava Schaller had a breakaway, but was stopped by the senior goalkeeper.

With time running down, Emmaus was awarded a penalty corner and got the kick off with just six seconds remaining in the game. Emmaus put a shot on-goal, but Gonzalez made the stop as time ran out.

“Parkland’s a really good team and they came out ready to go,” said Oswald. “I thought we were a little bit flat and they were able to get a couple goals early. In the second half, the momentum was ours and the opportunity was ours, but we weren’t able to finish the second one.”

Next up for Emmaus is the District 11 playoffs, which begin this week. Emmaus is the number-two seed in Class 4A and will host Freedom in the quarterfinal game Thursday night at Memorial Field. Emmaus downed Freedom in the EPC semifinals last week to advance to play Parkland for the conference championship.

“We don’t have a lot of kids on this roster who have played in championship games,” said Oswald. “We have three kids who were on the team when we played in the district championship. At times, the excitement and the emotional energy gets to us, but we were able to settle in and find some opportunities.

“The positive of the league tournament is that it’s not the end of the season. We’ve got districts and they will fight back from this. I think they’ll use this as motivation and I think that they’ll use it when we get into the district tournament so we can put our best effort out there. We hope to see them [Parkland] again, so we can get another crack at them.”