Competition brings out the best in an athlete. It makes everyone work harder to be better.

It did not matter what the sport or activity was, Emmaus senior basketball players and brothers, David and Matthew Kachelries were competitive. But not only did they want to be the better of the two, they wanted to be the best at what they did. And it only made each of them better.

“It could be video games, sports, whatever, we always wanted to beat each other,” David Kachelries said. “Even though we were competitive in whatever we did, we always had fun with each other.”

Kachelries mentioned a time when they were younger and first started playing basketball.

“We would be playing at the YMCA, and would be playing against each other and trying to outscore each other,” David said. “And if we were on the same team, we didn’t always pass to each other because both of us wanted to score more than the other.”

Well, the two brothers that just finished up four-year careers in the Green Hornets basketball program, were able to score with the best of them.

After a heartbreaking loss in the PIAA quarterfinals last Saturday afternoon to Carlisle, David finished as Emmaus’s all-time leading scorer with 1,910 points, and Matt ended with 1,027 points. Both will have their names on banners in the gym, and they will both be remembered as two of the school’s all-time great players.

“I couldn’t be happier to be a part of the Emmaus basketball program,” said Matt Kachelries. “The coaches, the fans, my teammates have been great throughout my four years, and I’ve really become a better player and person since getting to Emmaus.”

The Kachelries brothers have both been on the varsity team all four years and have been mainstays in the lineup. They have brought many exciting plays, and a lot of victories for the program. The success has been evident with Emmaus reaching the state tournament in three of the last four years. In reaching the quarterfinals last weekend, they became the first Green Hornets team to do so.

Head coach Steve Yoder knew the time was going to come where he had to say goodbye to the dynamic duo, but he has been a part of something special within the program since the Kachelries arrived.

“They’ve actually been with us since their eighth grade years,” Yoder said. “I first saw them as third graders and they had great fundamental skills, that’s what first stuck out to me. They were always the smallest kids on the floor, but they excelled because of their fundamentals and hard work, and were as quick as can be. They were ahead of the curve.”

In the four years with the Kachelries, Emmaus has gone 72-38, and were contenders for the league and district championships every year.

“Our success over the last four years speaks to what they have meant to the program,” Yoder said. “We’re in states for the third time in four years and the second year in a row we made the second round. The consistency we’ve had in winning games and reaching the league, district and state tournaments attests to how special they are.”

David and Matt both said that it was always their goal to play basketball at Emmaus. They were immediate contributors as freshmen, playing in every game.

During the sophomore season, Matt had surgery on his knee that kept him out for most of the year. And it wasn’t until this past season that he was fully recovered and felt 100 percent.

“It felt great to be the player I was before the knee situation,” Matt said about this year.

Growing up together at the YMCA, to their final game last Saturday in a double overtime defeat, David and Matt had usually been together, albeit for their different AAU teams in the summer.

Now it’s going to be different. They will be heading off to different schools, and playing on different college teams, and won’t be able to look for each other for transition layups, like they did flawlessly for years.

“It’s going to be weird at first,” David said. “We played on different AAU teams, but we’ve always been playing together. We know where each other is going to be on the court. I know Matt is going to do well wherever he goes. I’m proud of him.”

David will be playing at the New Jersey Institute of Technology this fall. Matt is likely to play in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference. Kutztown, East Stroudsburg, Millersville and Bloomsburg have shown interest.

“They’re definitely going to miss each other,” Yoder said. “There is going to be a period of time when they’re going to have to adjust to not having the other one on the floor with them.”