After a 5-5 start to the season, the Emmaus High School girls basketball team has hit a tough stretch, dropping five of its last six games.

The team has also run into a tough schedule that saw it face Parkland (7-0 in the EPC, 10-2 overall), Liberty (7-1, 10-1), Bethlehem Catholic (6-1, 9-3) and Whitehall (5-2, 9-4). While each of those games resulted in losses, the team is finding that it has enough talent and chemistry to give good teams a challenge.

Against Beca, coached by former Emmaus assistant Jose Medina, Emmaus was giving the Lady Hawks some fits in the first half and led 23-20 at the break. Strong defensive play by Emmaus forced Medina to challenge his team to try to shoot from the perimeter and fortunately for Bethlehem Catholic, their long range shooters got hot, sinking six straight three-pointers to pull away in the second half.

“We didn’t change much, but all of a sudden, they were firing up threes and they were going in,” said coach Carl Scheitrum. “When they’re as quick as they are, you either guard the three or you stop them from penetrating and sometimes, you just can’t do both, but you don’t expect them to make six consecutive three-point shots and that was just the difference in the game. The best part for me was that even after that, we didn’t stop battling, we kept trying and trying. They battled right to the end and that was fun to watch.”

Against Parkland, Emmaus (2-5, 6-7) also played tough early on, forcing the Lady Trojans to also change what they were doing before they were able to get hot in the second half and get out of The Hive with a win.

“A quarter here and a quarter there, not even a game, just a quarter here or a quarter there where we get into some lapses or some bad habits,” Scheitrum said. “Beyond that, I am so pleased with how well they’re working and how hard they’re working to get better.

“It’s just a matter of doing what we work on in practice. When your teammate is on the floor and they give you a good pass, point to them, give them the recognition, and it’s starting to show.”

The team hoped to have the towering tandem of Jenna Lessel and Kiyae White to help its offense, but an offseason ACL injury has kept White on the sidelines, where she’ll have to stay for the rest of the season, leaving teams able to key on Lessel more. On the upside, Scheitrum has been able to rotate in younger players who had less experience coming into the season, so while the players are taking their lumps now, they’re also learning lessons that will benefit them down the road.

“It’s so much fun to watch,” said Scheitrum. “We have such a great sophomore class, and the two juniors that we have. It’s not to say ‘wait until next year,’ but the beauty of it is that they’re getting so much time this year, that next year, they’re going to be ready to play and next year, they’re going to be ready for the pressure of the teams we play. Beca pressed us probably three-quarters of that game and we had a couple little hiccups, but we’re getting better and better at just working through those things and it’s the younger girls saying ‘I got this, coach.’ It’s pretty cool.”