Emmaus came into Monday’s game at Parkland feeling good about how its season was going so far. A 2-0 start to the season gave the Hornets some confidence, and it showed when the Hornets took on the Lady Trojans.

Facing Aubree Fritzinger, one of the better pitchers in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, Emmaus came out swinging and hit the ball hard, but couldn’t find many holes. The end result was a frustrating 6-2 loss to Parkland.

“We hit the ball harder than they did,” said Emmaus head coach John Eyer. “What hurt us was a couple of passed balls and the top of their order. That’s the only thing that really hurt us. Other than that, we hit the balls hard and they made the plays.”

Uncharacteristically, catcher Abby Bartels allowed a couple of passed balls that put runners in scoring position. The first inning miscue allowed runners to move up to second and third, but pitcher Hannah Palinkas pitched out of the jam without any further damage.

In the third inning, two passed balls and a fielding error led to four Parkland runs. Both times, it was the top of the order that did the damage for Parkland, with their one-through-four hitters going 6-for-16 in the game, with four RBIs and five runs scored.

“That’s not her and that doesn’t happen usually with her,” said Eyer.

Down 5-0, Emmaus looked to start chipping away in the top of the fourth inning. Caitlyn Eshelman – or Squid, as she likes to be called – led off the inning with a single to left and scored two batters later on a triple by Megan Purinton. Two batters after that, when it looked like Fritzinger might work out of the jam, Bartels ripped a line-drive single to left to cut Parkland’s lead to 5-2.

Emmaus looked for a seventh-inning rally when Bartels singled again, this time past the second baseman, to lead off the inning. Fritzinger got a fielder’s choice groundball and was able to record the final two outs to preserve the win.

“I’m very happy so far with the overall play,” said Eyer. “They’re playing hard. They’re not giving up. They don’t have any quit in them. They could have quit after it was 5-0 or 5-1, but they didn’t. They chipped away and we had a couple of good surprises. Megan [Purinton] hit the ball well today. The other day she struggled, but she hit the ball hard. That’s what we need to see is that we hit the ball hard and can do some things with that.”

The weather over the past couple of weeks has the schedule backed up. That means more games in a week than normal. For Emmaus, it means having some tough opponents backed up. After playing Parkland (5-0 overall; 3-0 EPC), Emmaus has Whitehall (2-0, 5-0), Dieruff (1-2, 1-3) and Blue Mountain this week, and then opens next week with Nazareth (5-0; 4-0) and Freedom (1-2; 1-1) on Monday and Tuesday to start a stretch of five games in six days.

“It’s going to be a tough week, so we have to put this game on the back burner now,” said Eyer. “It’s over and done, so we just have to move on. It’s going to be a long three weeks, because we have a lot of game. But we can’t worry about it. We just take it one at a time.”