Parkland girls basketball head coach Ed Ohlson has a sense for spotting talented players. When his team assembled for the season, he was able to tell that it’s youth meant the start of the season was going to be difficult, but there was enough talent that they would be there at the end.

The district finals are slated for Friday night and Ohlson and his young team are in fact there, ready to play for a district championship after knocking off top-seeded Easton 44-40 in the semifinals Tuesday night at Whitehall High School.

“I said early in the year that we would be a very different team as the season went on and we continued to develop our young players,” said Ohlson. “I said all along we would be there at the end and here we are going to the district finals.”

The game showed just how strong and gritty this team has become. Thanks to a buzzer beating three-pointer by Sara Tamoun to end the first quarter, the Red Rovers were up 10-8. Easton (24-2) started to flex its muscles in the second quarter and this time when Tamoun hit a three with under a minute left in the half, it put Easton up by 12 at 26-14.

The pace of the game slowed in the second half and Parkland made an early run to cut the game to 26-23, but Easton coach Dave Lutz used a timeout to rally his troops and again, aided by a Tamoun three-pointer, the Lady Rovers were back up by 12 with under two minutes to play in the third quarter.

That was the point where senior leadership kicked in for Parkland.

“I have to credit (senior Mo Olenwine) and Zoe (Wilkinson) with keeping our young players under control when we were trailing,” said Ohlson. “They provide the leadership for us, and the younger players saw that they were not panicking, and they kept their composure and pulled us back into the game. Paige Spang is another senior who is undersized for a player but commands some respect and really worked to get us back in this game.”

With the senior players holding the team together, younger players took their turns stepping into the spotlight. Sophomores Talia Zurinskas and Madi Siggins teamed up with freshman Delaney Chilcote to give Parkland a 10-2 run to bring the Lady Trojans within five.

This time when Easton looked to turn the tide of the game, it was Parkland flexing its muscles.

Wilkinson hit a jumper to cut the lead to 38-37 and on the next trip down the floor, Siggins pulled down an offensive rebound and put a shot up to give her team its first lead since early in the first quarter. That play alone marked a turnaround since Easton had dominated the boards throughout the game. Unofficially, Parkland was out-rebounded 25-13 in the game, with Easton pulling down 12 offensive rebounds of their own.

“We really wanted it,” said Siggins. “We put our heart into it, we came together, and our last two months have been great. I had every faith in this team. We were young at the beginning, and we had to work some things out, but this is who we are, and we are still a young team.”

When the dust cleared, Parkland had turned its 10-2 spurt into a 19-3 run that produced its largest lead of the game at 42-38.

Tamoun got to the foul line and hit two freebies to make it 42-40, but Zurinskas was immediately fouled when Parkland got possession of the ball and stayed calm and cool at the line to make it 44-40 and the Trojans defense handled the final :18 of the game. In the final minute, Zurinskas went to the line for four shots and buried all four to ice the game.

“I’ve been in pressure situations before and situations like this before and I just really need to step up for my team, so that’s what I did,” said Zurinskas. “I had to step up, we all did, because Easton is tough.”

Zurinskas led all scorers with 13 points, while Siggins (12) and Wilkinson (11) were also in double figures for the Lady Trojans. Tamoun finished with 12 and was joined by junior Anye’ Staton (10) in double figures for Easton.

The win gives Parkland a return trip to the district finals where it lost to Nazareth last season.

The Lady Trojans will play Northampton for the fourth time this season Friday night back at Whitehall High School. The teams split their two regular season games before Northampton knocked Parkland out of the East Penn Conference playoffs in the conference semifinals. Easton will play Nazareth, who fell to the Konkrete Kids 47-37 in the other semifinal game. All four semifinal teams gain a trip to states with the district champion playing closer to home to open the PIAA tournament, which gets underway next week.