After putting up a battle against powerhouse Emmaus in the regular season finale, Parkland came close to knocking the Hornets off in the East Penn Conference semifinals, falling by just one goal.

The two rivals wound up in the finals of the District 11 tournament Saturday at Whitehall High School with the Lady Trojans looking to be the team that ended the Emmaus streak of consecutive District 11 championships at 32. Unfortunately for Parkland, the Hornets were successful in defending their title and downed the Trojans 5-0.

One key mission for Parkland was to contain Emmaus’ leading scorer Abby Burnett. To do that, Parkland coach Julie Bisci tasked freshman Aurora Gery with marking Burnett and the plan worked.

Gery not only contained Burnett, but shut her down offensively.

“We came in very confident because of how we played them before,” said Bisci. “We’ve battled them pretty well and we were looking to build on what we did against them in the conference playoffs. I thought we did a good job on her (Burnett) and that was important. The problem is that they have so many weapons that you can’t stop them all.”

Emmaus was able to play to its strength by collecting a high number of corners, which is the team’s bread and butter. The Hornets had 15 corners compared to just three for Parkland and three of the Emmaus corners led to goals in the win. In the EPC tournament game, Parkland (16-7) was able to keep Emmaus (24-0) from getting corners and they were able to get corner opportunities more than in the loss in districts.

Parkland goalie Tess Garchinsky was under fire for a full 60 minutes in the game and made 12 stops to give the offense an opportunity to claw its way back into the game. The Emmaus defense made things difficult for the Trojans attack and was able to keep Parkland off the scoreboard.

“I’m definitely excited that we got second place, but I’m a little disappointed with how we played today,” Bisci said. “We could have played better than we did. We have to celebrate the success. We got second place in the district and that’s exciting.”

Emmaus’ Rachel Herbine scored twice in the game, with Autumn Kernechel, Lexi Kociban and Kyleigh Faust all picking up goals.

With the second-place finish in districts, Parkland will get a home game in the first round of states and will host Downingtown West (16-4-1), the third-place team from District 1.