With the score tied at 28-28 at halftime, it looked as if the Emmaus girls basketball team might pull off the upset over Northampton. The Hornets were shooting the ball well and playing good defense in the first half to put themselves in position for an important Eastern Pennsylvania Conference win.

But then the Konkrete Kids, led by junior forward Aja Blount, turned it up offensively. Blount had a career-high 37 points and Northampton (5-1 overall, 3-1 EPC) outscored Emmaus 42-25 in the second half and won the final league game of the 2015 in the EPC 70-53 last Tuesday night at Emmaus High School.

“The third quarter we came out flat and against a tough team like Northampton they just took advantage of it,” said first-year Emmaus head coach Carl Scheitrum. “Our girls seemed to be unsure of where to be on defense and once they opened the gaps a little bit then it just became very hard to try and recover.

“Give our girls credit, they worked really hard in that fourth quarter and they didn’t stop playing.”

The Hornets, trailing by double digits after three quarters, brought the score to within single figures early in the final quarter. Senior Jenna Lessel was a big part of the comeback effort. She tallied a career-high 19 points, but was the lone Emmaus player in double figures. Fellow senior Destanee Watkins and sophomore Ciara Wippel added nine points each. But both players played in foul trouble, and both fouled out in the fourth quarter, hurting the Green Hornets chances even further.

“Jenna played a great game for us,” said Scheitrum. “She stepped up in a big way in a big game when we needed her most.”

Both teams shot well from the field, shooting 40 percent. The Green Hornets were even better from 3-point land, cashing in on 50 percent of their shots from long range (6-of-12).

But it was the play of Blount, and the inability of the Emmaus defense to stop her, that was the story in this one.

“She was obviously a tough match up for us all night,” Scheitrum said. “We had a problem with her down low and she did a good job of grabbing rebounds and making shots in an easy way.”

Emmaus (4-3, 2-2) will return to action on Tuesday night when it takes on District 2’s Dallas High School in the Berwick Holiday Tournament.