It was something that was etched into the back of the minds of every senior on the 2026 Parkland High School boys volleyball team at the start of the regular season.

After winning three consecutive Eastern Pennsylvania Conference titles from 2022-24, the Trojans lost their reign on the top last year to rival Emmaus.

Even though this year’s senior class was unable to go a perfect 4-0 in EPC gold-medal matches, it didn’t want to go 0-for-2 in its last two.

And that group of upperclassmen made sure that wouldn’t happen as it led Parkland to a sweep of Whitehall in the EPC title match last Thursday night at Allen High School by scores of 25-21, 25-22, 26-24.

“It’s huge for us,” said senior setter Gabe Chase. “We’re going out as seniors and we wanted to go out on a high. It’s a big win to end our conference run. We feel good about this now, but we have a lot more still to play ahead of us and now we’ll have a target on our backs.”

It was a tightly-contested match throughout, and even though the Trojans won in straight sets, each set never saw a team have a lead of more than five points.

Parkland never trailed in the opening set and was able to take the early 1-0 lead in the match. In set two, the Zephyrs kept it close, but was never able to get over the top during the match. In the final set, Parkland was actually trailing late and was on the verge of dropping the set, with Whitehall holding set point at 24-23, but the

Trojans rallied for three straight points, including the winning block by Chase.

“When the set is towards the end, you know that your defense has to ramp up,” Chase said. “We needed to overtake their energy on that side of the net and the front had some big blocks for us on their great hitters. We played strong at the end and didn’t let them get any momentum.”

Parkland entered the postseason as the three seed and following a loss to the Hornets in the season finale, but they changed the momentum quickly.

“We started off the season a little slowly with two straight losses and then lost to Emmaus right at the end of the season,” Chase said. “But these are the playoffs. We knew we needed to heighten our energy and play together and we were able to use those two things to rattle off some wins.”

Chase finished with 38 assists, five blocks, 11 digs and one ace. Zeke Gordner recorded 12 kills and one ace. Jude Ruisch tallied nine kills. Bear Jacobs contributed eight kills, six blocks and three digs. Zamin Soonasra notched seven kills, six digs and two blocks. Owen Barnett had 14 digs.

Parkland is now 15-3 overall and earned the top seed in the District 11 3A tournament. The Trojans hosted the eighth seed, Dieruff, in the quarterfinal round Tuesday night. The semifinals are set for Thursday night at Catasauqua High School.