The Parkland Lady softball team made it through a 20-game regular season schedule with just two losses, both coming in nonconference games. The Trojans opened the season with a loss against Freedom and later dropped a 2-1 game to Northampton (14-2 EPC, 16-2 overall). When they met up with the Konkrete Kids for a second time, it took nine innings but this time it was Parkland on the good side of a 2-1 game.

Shana Gugliandolo was the hero in the Lady Trojans victory with a home run to left center field to lead off the bottom of the ninth inning. The hit was just the third of the game for Parkland, who struggled against Northampton pitcher Kaitlyn Renson.

After walking the first two batters in the fourth inning, Renson retired 15 straight batters before Gugliandolo launched her game-winner in the ninth.

“I’m really happy for her,” said Parkland head coach Barry Search of Gugliandolo, who is a junior. “She works hard and is a good kid. We really needed that because we weren’t able to get much offense going and that was a nice way to end it.”

Parkland looked to manufacture runs early in the game, knowing that Renson could make things tough on their offense. Cassidy Sweeney reached on an error to start the third inning and Ellyana Kromer dropped a sacrifice bunt to move her into scoring position. Renson was able to get a strikeout for the second out, but Madison Konapelsky delivered an RBI double to make it 1-0 but was stranded at second base.

Parkland pitcher Katie Zaun was battling her way through the Northampton offense and allowed just four hits in the game with the only run against her coming in the top of the seventh when Northampton also took advantage of an error to tie the game. Zaun struck out 17 batters in the game without allowing a walk.

“Katie has kept getting better and better and has done a really good job for us,” said Search. “The only thing that hurt her was when we had a bit of a problem defensively, but she doesn’t let things like that bother her and she just kept firing.”

Northampton’s unearned run in the top of the seventh snapped a stretch of nine straight shutouts for Parkland, with the Konkrete Kids being the last team to have scored a run against them in their earlier meeting. Overall, the Lady Trojans have won 11 straight games since that loss to Northampton.

Parkland followed up its win over Northampton with an 11-1 win over Pleasant Valley (4-10, 4-11) to finish their regular season schedule at 16-0 in the EPC and 18-2 overall.

Against the Lady Bears, Jenna Piatkewicz led Parkland with three hits and a walk, scoring two runs and driving in two runs out of her usual leadoff spot in the order. Kromer drove in three runs and scored twice, while Katie Gontkosky had two hits and drove in three runs.

Search elected to rest Zaun after just two innings of work and junior Ashlyn Hillanbrand came on to pitch the final three innings of the game, allowing one run on two hits while striking out four batters.

Parkland will go into the EPC playoffs as the top seed and will host Pocono Mountain East (10-7, 11-7) in the quarterfinals this afternoon. The semifinals are set for Monday with the conference championship scheduled for next Thursday. The two teams have not faced each other during the regular season and the Lady Cardinals come into the game having lost four of their last six games.