Emmaus girls tennis head coach Dimitri Diamandopoulos knew that the tough part of the schedule was coming for his team and it has proven to be every bit as tough as he figured.

After losses to Easton and Freedom by identical 6-1 scores, Emmaus (5-5, 5-6) nearly knocked off a strong Northampton team, but lost 4-3 before Nazareth handed the Hornets their fourth straight loss, 6-1.

“This was going to be an important part of our schedule, because we knew we were looking at having to play the toughest teams in the league right in a row,” said Diamandopoulos. “Where we run into trouble is against teams that have a lot of depth and teams like Easton and Nazareth have that depth.”

Against Northampton (9-2), number-one singles player Elise VanOrmer took the Kids’ Emma Angle to three sets, battling back after losing the opening set 6-2. VanOrmer won the middle set 6-4 to force the finale, but dropped a 6-0 decision to Angle. Julia Pan was the only Emmaus singles player to come away with a win against Northampton, beating Grace Lewis 6-2, 6-2.

Emmaus took one and two doubles, but Northampton picked up wins in three and four doubles, with number-four doubles team Caroline Sampson and Sandhya Sririam taking the second set to a tiebreaker, in hopes of forcing a third set.

“I think we put up a good fight and the girls all played well, but we couldn’t find that one key set that we needed here or there to flip one of the matches in our favor,” said Diamandopoulos.

Against Nazareth (10-2, 11-2), VanOrmer dropped the first set, but again came back for a 7-5 win in the second set and then took a 6-2 win in the third set for Emmaus’ only win of the day. In doubles, Sonya Boukengolts and Xinyi He fell 6-4, 6-2 in number-two doubles and Tara Wu and Rina Hollinger also had a tough battle at number-three doubles before dropping a 6-3, 6-4 match.

The four teams that Emmaus has lost to over this stretch are a combined 37-6 in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference this season. Emmaus opened the season with a 5-2 loss to Bethlehem Catholic, who are 10-0 in the EPC.

Things don’t get easier, with Parkland (7-3, 9-3), and Central Catholic (6-3, 8-3) still on the schedule. Between those two matches, Emmaus will play Whitehall (2-3, 3-3).