Parkland Girls Hoopsters Face Critical LVC Test Tonight

The Parkland High School girls basketball team and coach Wes Spence entered the 2010-11 season realizing they’d have an opportunity to enjoy a very good season.

The Lady Trojans have put together a stellar campaign for sure, but whether they qualify for the Lehigh Valley Conference playoffs probably boils down to two games.

And, the first one is tonight at 7 when Parkland hosts Nazareth in a game with huge postseason implications.

Parkland finds itself in a dogfight with Nazareth and Northampton in the LVC’s North Division.  The Lady Trojans and Northampton sport 8-1 divisional records. Nazareth weighs in with a 7-2 mark.

Two of the three teams will qualify for the LVC tourney and one will be left on the outside looking in.

That’s what makes tonight’s home matchup with Nazareth so critical for the Lady Trojans.

A victory against the Blue Eagles, which would avenge a three-point loss in December, would put Parkland squarely in the driver’s seat and hand Nazareth its third divisional loss. The Blue Eagles would nearly be mathematically eliminated and need lots of help in the season’s final week to even qualify for a tiebreaker scenario.

Yet, if Nazareth wins tonight, both teams would have two losses and place Parkland in a position where it would need to beat Northampton next Tuesday night in order to assure itself of an LVC tournament berth.

The Lady Trojans defeated Northampton at home in late December, but don’t want to place themselves in a position where they’d have to beat a top-notch program for a second straight time – on the Konkrete Kids’ home floor – in order to gain a postseason berth.

Instead, a victory tonight over Nazareth makes Tuesday's game with Northampton all about the outright LVC North title.