It was a difficult season for the Emmaus girls soccer team and Sarah Oswald, the team’s first-year coach. The Hornets were eliminated from District 11 playoffs with a 3-1 loss to Parkland in the district quarterfinals.

Things started well for Emmaus when Bella Kober scored with 9:56 to play in the first half, giving Emmaus a 1-0 lead.

Throughout the first half, Emmaus controlled much of the play and kept pressure on Parkland and goalkeeper Regan Allsop. Unfortunately for Emmaus, Allsop was generally up to the challenge. Allsop suffered a jaw injury late in the first half and was replaced by Olivia Schantz for the rest of the game.

“It’s a position that our team has never been in before, up a goal at the half against a quality team,” said Oswald. “We talked at halftime about how they were going to put the pressure on us. That’s a team that I knew was not going to be satisfied with a 1-0 loss.”

Parkland turned things around in the second half and kept pressure on goalkeeper Jess Harnett, who made a number of big saves for Emmaus. Chelsea Hudson broke through to tie the game with 33:17 to play and four minutes later, Brooke Schutter put the Lady Trojans up for the first time in the game.

“They came and put it to us and they played Parkland soccer and we didn’t generate a lot of chances like we had in the past couple of games,” said Oswald. “They’re a really good attacking team with quality forwards and in the first half, we understood them and in the second half, they got the better part of us. I’m really proud of how our kids played.

“They did exactly what we wanted them to do as far as a game plan, but it just didn’t work for us today.”

With just over 13 minutes to play, Rachel Laird gave Parkland its final goal of the game and a 3-1 lead.

While Emmaus’ season didn’t go quite as well as the Hornets might have hoped, Oswald was happy with how her team responded in tough situations throughout the year.

“Once the season progressed and we saw that winning the division and reaching EPCs was out of the question, districts was our chance to shine,” she said. “Although we didn’t come back with a victory today, I don’t think that we sent any message other than that Emmaus is coming to compete and we did that against Stroudsburg and we did that out here today.

“I’m happy with how the season went and playing in districts will give us the confidence to come out next year and compete.”

As for her first season as the team’s coach, Oswald realized a lot about her team and the skills that she has for leading it through a long season.

“I learned a lot about managing a group of girls, in general, how to solve some soccer problems, and how to organize a team when things aren’t going our way,” she said. “That was something that happened a lot this season.

“This is a great group of kids and every day they persevered through things and were willing to learn and willing to work for me and that’s all you can ask of them.

“I’m really excited about the future for these kids. Our young kids really stepped up this year, not just when our seniors got hurt, but in general, they stepped up and met expectations that we had set for them as players. I think that if they can keep meeting expectations as we set the bar higher, this Emmaus program is going to come around and be strong.”