There have been several heir apparent teams looking to stop Emmaus’ District 11 championship streak.

Stroudsburg made a run a few years back and in the past few seasons Easton was the team taking shots at the Hornets.

But over the 37 years Parkland had always been among the top teams trying to knock off Emmaus.

This season the Trojans came as close as any team has to ending Hornets’ reign over the district title.

In their regular season meeting with Emmaus, Parkland became the first team to take a lead against Emmaus and only the second local team to score against them this season.

When the two teams met Saturday in the District 11 championship, the Trojans didn’t just give Emmaus a battle, they gave the Hornets a war.

In the end, Emmaus won its 37th straight district championship in a 1-0 win at Salisbury High School.

“This is the team that will beat Emmaus,” said Parkland coach Julie Nelson, pointing to her team with silver medals around their necks. “I’m very proud of that and I hope that they feel that way. I don’t think 1-0 depicts what this game was like. We outplayed them for a larger portion of it. I’m very proud of them. I just wish the score was different.”

Emmaus (23-1-0) got off to a slow start, but it was more the Parkland (17-6-0) defense that caused it than it was anything that Emmaus was or was not doing. Slowly, Emmaus found more opportunities but was unable to get the ball past goalie Audrina Stewart, who would finish the game with nine saves to her credit.

By halftime, neither team scored, and it was anyone’s guess which team would come out strong in the third quarter.

Emmaus, which uncharacteristically did not have a corner in the first half, picked up two early corners in the third. On the second of the corners, Maddie Lenig sent the insert pass to senior Morgann Orobono

Orobono quickly passed the ball to Sharlise Solano, who put the ball low past Stewart.

Neither team was able to make much of a breakthrough against the other team’s defense throughout the rest of the game.

The final game numbers show why Nelson has such confidence in her team; the numbers are far from the dominating numbers that the Hornets usually put up in a game.

A Hornets team that is not unfamiliar with scoring 10 or more goals in a game – they did it 10 times during the regular season – had just 10 shots on goal against Parkland, who had seven shots of their own.

Each team had just three penalty corners in the game, and Stewart had nine saves compared to seven for Emmaus’ Emily Romano.

“We changed our press up so that we stayed a little more complacent,” said Nelson. “I was fine with them wasting the clock in the backfield. We attacked on certain times and just made sure the middle was protected, that was our biggest deal.”

Both teams already had a spot in the PIAA tournament locked up. Parkland will host Methacton (17-3-2), the third place team from District 1 in the opening round of states.

The Hornets host Garnet Valley (16-7-0), the sixth place team from District 1.