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Lady Trojans Psyched By Hoop Star Status: First Parkland Girls Basketball Team to Play for a State Title in Hershey Tonight.

Posted on: Friday, 24 March 2006, 09:00 CST

By Kirk Beldon Jackson, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.

Mar. 24--Around Parkland High School these days, the girls basketball team is enjoying rock star popularity.

People are putting Hershey's kisses in their lockers -- symbolic of the PIAA Class 4A championship game they will play tonight against Council Rock North of Bucks County at the Giant Center in Hershey.

T-shirts honoring the team are selling fast. An initial order of 100 went to 300, said assistant coach Megan Carmosky. And tickets for the game have become as coveted -- at least at the school and its surrounding community -- as those for a Rolling Stones concert.

Closed-circuit television screens all over the school display such encouragement as "Hershey, here we come" and "1 to Go. Good Luck!"

Win or lose, the Parkland Trojans have made history, becoming the school's first girls basketball team to advance to the state title final. And the school and the community are treating them accordingly.

"People say 'Hi' to me I don't even know," said Laura Baranek, a senior who plays forward for the team. She and other teammates were selling T-shirts outside the school cafeteria. "They say 'Good game' and 'I saw you' and 'Great job.' "

Amanda Wolf, a guard on the team, calls the whole thing "overwhelming."

"It's been happening so fast and there's a lot to take in," she said.

Minutes before, a man had greeted the players with a display of balloons, some painted to look like basketballs and others emblazoned with "Good Luck." He then wished them luck with a brief song.

The school will have a pep rally for the Trojans at the gym at 8 a.m. today. Upon returning from the game tonight -- win or lose -- nine fire companies and two ambulance corps will meet the players at Route 100 and Tilghman Street in Fogelsville, said Assistant Fire Chief Val Strock of the Tri-Clover Fire Company. The vehicles will lead them in a parade back to the high school, he said.

"Students are talking about it, the faculty is talking about it, obviously with ticket sales you have a lot of community members coming into the school to purchase tickets," said Principal Richard Sniscak.

One of those community members was Amanda Wolf's mother, Karen, who said a booster club for the team had ordered the T-shirts, which team members were hawking during lunchtime.

"We did the T-shirts just for Hershey so we could show our color red at the game," said Wolf.

This is the third Parkland team to make the state finals in four years: The football team won the PIAA Class 4A crown in 2002 and the boys basketball team lost the 4A final to Penn Hills in 2004.

But the girls are more than holding their own in ticket sales, said Athletic Director Mike Dobil, whose interview with a reporter was interrupted several times by phone calls from people asking about tickets.

The district had sold 1,000 tickets by Thursday -- and by midafternoon needed to order more from the Giant Center, Dobil said. The sales levels matched the 2004 boys basketball finals and was only exceeded by the state football finals, he said.

The girls team has been on the rise over the past three years. They made it to the first game of the playoffs two years ago, and to the final eight last year.

It became apparent in February that this year would be special, Dobil said. That month, the Trojans defeated Central Catholic at the Lehigh Valley Interscholastic Athletic Conference.

"There was a real good crowd here, the place was packed, and the girls played a real good game," recalled coach Patti Heffner.

The girls, who include Heffner's daughter, Amy, spent Thursday scrimmaging members of the boys team. Heffner said they then had plans to go to a coach's house for dinner, then to a team member's house to watch the movie "Hoosiers."

Heffner said she is proud of her girls, win or lose. "If the other team is a better team, it doesn't take away from anything they've done in the last two years," she said.

kirk.Jackson@mcall.com

610-820-6527

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Source: The Morning Call, Allentown, Pennsylvania

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