The Emmaus girls lacrosse team has been on a bit of a roll lately with two straight victories against Eastern Pennsylvania Conference opponents, and three overall versus teams from District 11. After wins against Saucon Valley to open the season and Northampton and Central Catholic last week, the Green Hornets came into the rivalry game against Parkland playing on a hot streak.

With 38 goals scored in the last two games, Emmaus was having an easy time finding the back of the net. But that changed Monday night at Memorial Field, netting nine goals in an 18-9 loss to the Trojans.

It was the first loss in the league for Emmaus (3-3 overall, 2-1 EPC), but the 11th straight loss to Parkland, which dates back to the 2012 season.

“We didn’t play well at all,” said Emmaus head coach Nancy DeBellis. “We’re much better than what we showed tonight. They were definitely quicker to the ball than we were and we seemed to be out of character in the beginning. We have a lot of things to work on. I figured we would do much better than we did tonight. There were things that we did OK, but overall it wasn’t a good game for us.”

The key to success in lacrosse is winning the draw, and the Green Hornets trailed in that category 15-8. With the win of the draw comes possession time, and the Trojans took advantage by jumping out to a 4-0 lead within the first five minutes.

“We have to do a better job at midfield winning face offs,” DeBellis said. “It’s a key in any game to being successful, and they won enough of them tonight to put themselves in position to score goals.”

Junior Maddy Dorn led the Emmaus offensive attack with a hat trick and freshman Taylor O’Brien and senior Grace Sullivan added two goals apiece. Senior Destanee Watkins also scored in her sixth straight game, while junior Kendelle Conrad added her ninth goal of the season.

But the Hornets just could not stop the Trojans’ attack. When they brought the deficit to 8-5 late in the first half, Parkland (5-2 overall, 4-1 EPC) scored four goals in 49 seconds to take a 12-5 halftime lead.

Gaffney opened up the second half with a goal inside the first minute, and Parkland held as much as a ten goal lead at 16-6 midway through, and never looked back.

Junior goalie Cristina Carotenuto made four saves for the Green Hornets.

Emmaus has a road game Thursday at Nazareth followed by a home game Saturday morning against Easton.