Two perennial favorites in girls soccer met for the first time this season Monday night at Emmaus as the Parkland Lady Trojans met up with division rival Emmaus in a battle of unbeaten teams. The game kicked off a home-and-home series between the two teams that will finish off the regular season.

Both teams had some early looks at the net but neither was able to capitalize. Finally, Parkland put together pressure and Demi Olatillo placed a shot just under the crossbar to give the Lady Trojans a 1-0 lead midway through the first half.

The lead held up until the second half when Parkland (9-0-0 EPC, 9-0-0 overall) seemed to take a commanding lead in the game when Mariana Aubele-Gonzalez fired a shot on goal that rebounded back onto the playing field coming perfectly to Zuzu Mohamed, who was able to place a shot past goalie Molly Lineberger to give Parkland a 2-0 edge. “We’ve got great team speed and we’ve got it at every position,” said coach Al Haddad. “We’ve got a strong 11 players on the field and two of our fastest players come off the bench and I think we can really use that to our advantage.”

Unfortunately for Parkland, Emmaus (6-1-2, 7-1-2) was undaunted by the goal and came right back with a goal off a header by Maddie Brzezinski into the front corner of the net to cut Parkland’s lead to 2-1.

Emmaus took over the momentum of the game as it worked to force a tie. Just five minutes after Brzezinski’s goal, the Trojans’ Alex Marsteller took a pass from Ivy Dias and fired with the ball reaching the back of the net. The goal not only put the Trojans up 3-1, but the late two-goal lead finally diminished Emmaus’ intensity of the game and Parkland was able to ride out the clock to get the win.

“When they scored their goal, they kind of had all the energy and we slowed down a little,” said Marsteller. “We knew we had to pick it up and keep playing hard and when we got that goal the momentum shifted back to us.”

“I was really glad to see us get that goal back,” said Haddad. “It tells me a lot about their character. They went out and got that goal rather than hanging on for a 2-1 win.”

The two teams meet again Thursday in the regular season finale for both teams. The two games will provide some measure of where the teams are heading into districts, which begin next week. Throughout much of the abbreviated season, the schedule for both teams didn’t challenge Emmaus or Parkland very much and there is no denying that the two teams are each other’s own best competition of the season.

The schedules were divided up so that East Penn Conference teams wouldn’t need to travel outside of their own county to play regular season games, limiting the potential exposure to COVID-19. Each new division currently has one undefeated team with Parkland being undefeated in the Lehigh County Division, Nazareth (9-0-0) in the Northampton County Division and Pocono Mountain East (8-0-0) in the Monroe County Division.

In district rankings, Emmaus is currently seeded fourth while Parkland is at the top of the district standings.

“This was big for us because we haven’t been playing a lot of really competitive teams lately and this showed us how we have to play to win these games against tougher teams,” Marsteller said. “Hopefully, we can win on Thursday and these wins will carry us through the playoffs.”