After being held scoreless in their prior two meetings against Emmaus, the Whitehall baseball team was finally able to break through against the Hornets in the opening round of the district playoffs.

They scored both their runs in the top of the fifth, taking a 2-1 advantage into the Hornets home half of the inning.

But that's when their hopes of making it back to the finals evaporated as the Hornets plated three runs to take a 4-2 lead, a lead which stood up for the next two innings, eliminating the Zephyrs from the playoffs thus ending their season.

The Zephyrs last appeared in the District XI finals in 2013, and this year they were hoping to ride the arm of Jake Meyers as they met the seventh-seeded Hornets at Community Park in Emmaus.

The Hornets countered with Joel Bartoni, the third different Hornet pitcher the Zephs faced this season. O'Boyle initially thought they would send ace Trey Hinkle to the hill, but the Hornets decided on Bartoni who had a 3-2 record heading into Monday's game.

Whitehall manager Shaun O'Boyle said that Bartoni wasn't overpowering, relying mostly on his fastball, while mixing in a few curves, throughout his stint on the mound.

When they tagged Bartloli for those two runs in the fifth, Nicholas Delp got things rolling with a leadoff single. Designated runner Bryce Crum was inserted for Delp and promptly stole second base. David Gonzalez's single up the middle scored Crum for the games equalizer. They went ahead after David Laky's sacrifice bunt was misplayed, advancing Gonzaled to third, eventually scoring on Javy Rodriguez's grounder.

Those two runs snapped a four-game scoreless drought heading into D-11 opener, and while it wasn't enough to advance, O'Boyle said they kept grinding to the last out.

"I actually thought it was one of the better games we played in the last four games," said O'Boyle.

They managed to get two runners abroad in the top of the seventh, with the potential tying run on at first, but once again could now come through with the big hit. That's something that's plagued them the entire season, especially late, said O'Boyle.

"We had a chance," said O'Boyle. "That's been the story of our year, we could not come up with the big hit at the crucial time."

Whitehall struggled offensively down the stretch. After scoring 62 runs in their first nine games, the Zephs scored just 27 in their last nine games.

O'Boyle knew that going into the game, the bats had to come alive, at least in RBI situations. With Meyers on the mound they knew they would have a good shot at victory, but Bartoni was effective enough to keep the Zepny batters silent for most of the game.

"It's tough to win when you only get four hits," O'Boyle said.

For the Hornets, Eric Chihocki supplied the big blow, knocking in two runs to lead Emmaus into a quarterfinal tilt against Stroudsburg.

The Zephs finished the season at 10-12.