Patricia Bortz and the Lady Knights meet Mercer tonight in the D-10 Class 1A girls soccer playoffs at Greenville High School (5:30 p.m.).

Coming off a 5-11-1 season, the Eisenhower girls soccer team was looking for improvement in 2017.

The Knights certainly did improve, rolling through the regular season to a 14-4 record and heading to the District 10 playoffs as a 4-seed.

Eisenhower was even more improved at home, going 8-1 at Eisenhower with the lone loss against Region 3 winner Iroquios.

“The entire team is coming together and working as a unit,” Eisenhower coach Diana Elmquist said after a 9-0 win over Franklin last week.

Elmquist took over a team coming off a 5-11-1 season, but lost only two seniors and finished 2016 with a pair of convincing wins over Smethport and Oil City.

Eisenhower scored 52 goals this season, nearly double the 28 they scored in 2016. At least 16 of those goals came from the foot of senior forward Terry Lee Talasky. Talasky started the season red-hot, scoring Eisenhower’s first six goals of the year. Knights midfielder Caroline Smelko had an assist on many of Talasky’s goals, along with scoring a handful of her own.

“Caroline’s a strong player and really contributes. She’s a fierce competitor,” Elmquist said.

The Knights focus now turns to their first round opponent, Mercer. The Mustangs (9-8-1) finished second to Wilmington in Region 1. The Knights and Mustangs only common opponent this season was Seneca. The Mustangs fell 4-3, while Eisenhower split its two matchups with the Bobcats.

The first round contest will be played at 5:30 p.m. today at Greenville High School.