You never quite know what you're going to get when you play Emmaus. That fact could make the Hornets a dangerous team heading into the Lehigh Valley Legion tournament.

At times, Emmaus (8-10) has looked it they can beat just about anybody and at other times, it has struggled mightily. The tools are there, it's just a matter of putting things together to make it all work.

One problem has been a lack of success against teams at or above the .500 mark. Emmaus went 2-8 against North Parkland, South Parkland, Lower Macungie, Southern Lehigh and West Allentown, the top five teams in the league this season. Their only wins came against Lower Macungie (9-5) and Southern Lehigh (10-7). In a lot of those games though, Emmaus played its opponents tough, but in the end, came up short. Against West Allentown, Emmaus lost by scores of 4-2 and 9-8. The Hornets beat Southern Lehigh 10-0 before losing the second meeting 5-4.

Emmaus also showed some improvement as the season went along. In its first meeting with South Parkland, the number two team in the league, they lost 8-2, but dropped a 4-3 decision in their next meeting. It's that improvement that Emmaus is hoping will show in the postseason.

"I think we're a better team than we were early in the year," said Charlie Barebo, who along with Tyler Kish was on the Lehigh Valley Legion all-star roster. "We're playing better and we feel like we can win games."

Pitching depth could become an issue for Emmaus when playoff games start to stack up and it has to go deeper into the pitching staff. When either Kish or Zach Schrader start, Emmaus is 6-2 on the season. Kish has a 1.20 ERA and Schrader has a 1.84 ERA on the season. After that, there's a bit of a drop.

Offensively, Emmaus has hit just .267 this season and at times, the offense goes into hiding. Even so, Emmaus was shutout just once this season and has shown the potential to put some runs on the board.

The question will be if it can get the pitching it needs and keep its offense strong enough to support what it gets on the mound.

In the first round of the playoffs, Emmaus will face rival Lower Macungie. The two teams split their two games this season and Lower Mac will be looking for a bit of revenge from a 3-0 loss in the last meeting.

In that game, Kish completely shut down the Lower Mac offense and it will be interesting to see how he can handle the Mustang's bats the second time that he has to face them, should he be called upon to pitch the playoff opener.

The meeting with Lower Macungie will be at Church Lane Park Thursday night at 5:45 p.m.