About the only predictable thing in Eastern Pennsylvania Conference baseball season this spring was unpredictability.

Any team among the league’s top 10 could beat any other on a given day. That trend continued into the postseason as No. 9 seed Pocono Mountain East knocked off an upstart Emmaus team that had been playing its best baseball heading into the postseason.

The Cardinals won 9-4 in a game that was played over two days after a storm forced a suspension last Monday at Emmaus Community Park.

“It’s a disappointing outcome for sure,” said Emmaus head coach Mike Mihalik. “I wouldn’t have guessed that would have been the final score between these two teams. We competed. That’s all I can ask of the team. We competed every inning.”

The Hornets got behind early and couldn’t dig out of the hole. Cardinal starter Zach McCambley had a 4-0 lead before he stepped on the mound and his team added two runs in the third inning to make it 6-0 before Emmaus got on the board.

The Hornets, which failed to score after loading the bases with one out in the second inning, broke the shut out in the third. Evan Marushak led off with a single, moved to second on a George Smith single and scored on Jacob Hahn’s RBI single with two outs.

Just when the Hornets might have been building up momentum, a storm rolled in and left the field unplayable. The game was suspended in the top of the fourth inning.

When the contest resumed Tuesday afternoon, the Cardinals got right back to work. A single and home run by the first two batters after the game resumed put the Cardinals back ahead 9-1.

Emmaus fought back with two runs in the fourth inning. With McCambley on the bench after throwing over 60 pitched Monday, Tyler Horvath started Tuesday’s portion of the game.

The Hornets’ Eric Cichocki greeted Horvath with a two-out single in the bottom of the fourth inning. Marushak (2-for-4, 2 runs, RBI) tripled to bring Chichocki home then scored on a Todd Moxey single to get Emmaus withing 8-3.

The Cardinals added a run in the top of the seventh before the Hornets tried to mount a rally that would keep their season alive.

Nick Mazzella drew a two-out walk. Taden Gery was hit by a pitch and Hahn singles to drive in a run. But the Cardinals’ James Balogh, who took the mound to start the seventh inning, got a fly out to end the game and move his team into a district semifinal against top-seeded Bangor. The Cards lost 12-2 to the Slaters.

The Hornets end the season at 12-10 overall. While the team had just four seniors on the roster this year, no one in the program considered this a rebuilding year.

“This year wasn’t just a year to build for next year,” said Mihalik. “That last week of the year we went 4-1 in those five games and we got this feeling like we can play with anybody and we could beat anybody. That was our attitude going into the playoffs.

“We wanted to see if we could make something happen. We had the team to do it. We have the talent offensively and we have the pitching.”

The second-year head coach was happy with the improvement he saw in the team and was pleased with the way it battled against Pocono Mountain East despite being down the whole game.

“We were down in the sixth and seventh inning and we didn’t stop,” said Mihalik. “That ultimately reflects on the culture of the team and the seniors have a huge part in establishing that.”

Emmaus graduates Smith, Mazzella, Nolan Cope and Tyler Kish. All of them have been with the program for three years, Smith and Cope were with the team for four seasons.

“When you look at what it’s like moving forward without the seniors it’s going to be different,” said Mihalik. “They did a phenomenal job this year leading by example.”