Before the final of the varsity boys basketball game on Sunday night, Tony Stellar said it best when he stated that "All of these teams played against the best, because this is the number one basketball tournament in the country."

The Emmaus girls basketball team was able to take part in the annual Stellar Catch A Rising Star Tournament, which began on Wednesday and concluded on Sunday.

The weekend consisted of many of the local teams in the Lehigh Valley Conference, Colonial League, and Mountain Valley Conference, but also featured teams from outside the Lehigh Valley.

The Green Hornets were one of the first teams to play, with a matchup against Lehigh Valley Conference rival Parkland to open up the tournament.

Emmaus hung around with the Trojans, who are coming off an LVC runner-up finish and a trip to the PIAA tournament last season. But Parkland, the eventual tournament runner up, used a late run to put away the Green Hornets 36-28.

"The last two times we played Parkland we had gotten beat pretty bad," said assistant coach Jose Medina. "We were up with about six minutes to go in the game. I told the girls [after] we need to build off of that game."

The girls heeded the words of their coach and came out three days later to defeat Saucon Valley, 45-39 on Saturday morning. Jenna Lessel scored a team-high 16 points and Beth Wiseley contributed 12.

"They came in with the right mindset," said Medina. "That's a good team over there (Saucon Valley). The girls really worked hard together. They threw a 1-3-1 [zone] at us, and they adjusted well to it. The girls executed really well."

Emmaus would lose its next game, 35-29 to Dieruff, and finish the tournament 1-2. Lessel finished with 10 points in the loss.

"I just want our girls to play," Medina said. "We're not here as coaches to call plays, just play basketball. This is where all of the stuff that you worked on in the gym, this is where you have to use that. The number one thing is to develop confidence. When you're playing with confidence great things happen."

Emmaus will now look to improve on its play in this weekend's Lehigh Valley Sportsfest girls tournament.