The Emmaus girls volleyball team used their athleticism, and the friendly confines of their home gymnasium, to dispatch of Pleasant Valley 3-0 by scores of 25-13, 25-21, and 25-11 last Thursday night in the District 11 3A quarterfinals.

The Green Hornets advanced to the semifinals, a spot they have been familiar with for the last couple of years, and will face a familiar opponent in Parkland.

“Our serving was very aggressive tonight,” said head coach Gwen Millets. “We struggled a little bit passing. We just couldn’t get that going. We had some errors there, but then we got back going there towards the end. In the third set we were passing a lot better and communicating really well. But our hitting was very aggressive up front, and I think that’s what won us this match.”

The big hitters up front, Megan Forstburg (12 kills, 13 digs, 3 service aces), Alyson Bohman (11 kills, 4 blocks), and Adelina Rivera-Woolard (9 kills) were a force all night and made it tough for the Bears to get anything going offensively, and they pounded the ball to the floor.

The win was an exclamation point for Emmaus, which bounced back after a 3-1 loss to Liberty a week earlier in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference quarterfinals.

“It’s a really nice win and I’m proud of the girls,” said Millets. “We had such a long break, and it can get hard to get back into the swing of things, but I’m happy with how they performed after all of that practice we had following the Liberty loss. We’re looking forward to two good practices before getting Parkland on Tuesday.”

The Hornets and Trojans met for a third time this in season in Tuesday’s semifinal match, which was played after Press deadline.

It seems that every year the two teams have a say in who will win the district title, and this year is no different.

The Trojans are defending state champs and ranked No. 1 in the state this season. They went 16-0 this season, won the league title and are the top seed in the District 11 Class AAA bracket. Emmaus went 11-7 in the regular season and earned the No. 4 seed in the districts.