For the majority of last night's District 11 Class AAA girls' soccer game between Pleasant Valley and host Whitehall, the Lady Zephyrs held a comfortable 2-0 lead that seemed to relax everyone into assuming the outcome. However, when the Lady Bears' Emily Schlogl tallied a goal, the fires lit underneath both teams and the fans as a raucous finish ensued, before Whitehall eventually held on to the 3-1 win.

With the victory, the Zephyrs (19-1-1) move on to the next round to face Stroudsburg, a 1-0 winner over Easton, while Pleasant Valley (14-7-1) finishes its roller coaster of a season.Whitehall's Kayla Cunningham notched all three of her team's scores to lead the way for the highly-touted, and highly-aggressive Zephyrs."At halftime, I told the girls that we needed to make adjustments in order to hold Cunningham down," Pleasant Valley head coach Timothy Hinton said. "We told them at the break that it would just take one play to change the complexion of the game and it definitely did."At the halfway mark of the second half, Schlogl's score ignited the intensity in both sides. Up until that point, it seemed to be a lopsided contest, as the hosts continuously pounded the Lady Bear defense.Lady Bear defense."(Pleasant Valley) came out to play hard and they brought it tonight," Whitehall head coach George Romano said, following the game. "They have a strong sense of physicality on the field and I think we did a good job of matching that tonight."Early on, the Zephyrs sent a barrage of shots at PV goalie Janelle Pastrana (17 saves) before Cunningham scored the first goal of her hat trick off a feed from Alex Kreeger. Roughly 10 minutes later, she added another score, upping the Whitehall lead to 2-0 with 17:25 remaining in the first half."We like to play a certain style of soccer here at Whitehall," Romano said. "Kayla (Cunningham) is a superb player and a superb athlete, both on and off the field and that showed tonight."Facing the two-score hole, the Bears entered the second half seemingly stagnant and overwhelmed at times. Whitehall continued to press and with the exception of a few random challenges from the Lady Bears, the winners remained dominant as the half rolled on.That's when Schlogl and a Zephyr defender tangled up in a battle for control of the ball, before the Pleasant Valley forward broke free and had only Whitehall goalie Kelsey Himmelwright between her and the goal. Schlogl's shot skipped right past Himmelwright and the outlook of the contest drastically changed.With emotions flaring and the loser going home, a scuffle led to Cunningham receiving a penalty kick late in the game. She fired the shot into the bottom right corner of the net for the final score."Looking back on the season, and tonight's game, we have had our share of ups and downs," Hinton said. "It is such a great group of girls and I couldn't be prouder of all of them. When you get to this point of the season you face off against the top teams in the area."The five seniors is actually a low number of players that I need to say 'goodbye' to, but all five of them are key players and are going to be missed."