The Whitehall boys volleyball team was looking to claim a league championship last week against Emmaus, but it wasn’t in the script, so now they’ll turn the page and challenge for a district title.

The Green Hornets took the crown at Easton Area Middle School, defeating the Zephyrs in three sets, 18-25, 17-25, 17-25.

In their earlier match this season, the Green Hornets controlled the action from the service line through long stretches, racking up points on aces and receiving errors. This time the Zephs did a good job of limiting those points, with the exception of James Haag closing out the second set with a five-point run.

That made each set more competitive, but they couldn’t put together enough runs to overtake the Green Hornets who rarely trailed throughout the evening.

“We played with them in five of the six rotations,” said head coach George Cowitch “We know the one we’re not really good in right now, and that’s something we can fix.”

Cowitch said it’s not something that’s insurmountable; it’s something they can work on and get better at as they look to continue to advance through district action.

Cowitch knows that Emmaus is a team that will pose a challenge anytime they meet. They are ranked among the top 10 teams in the state in the 3A classification. While they’re a good squad, he believes his team has to play better.

With the district playoffs underway, and the two teams on the opposite side of the District 11 3A brackets, a possible rematch looms.

“Well get another shot, there’s no doubt about that,” said Cowitch.

Emmaus wasn’t quite as sharp in the championship as they were in their regular season meeting, and Cowitch knows you have to be prepared to take advantage of any mistakes, while also limiting your own miscues. They weren’t able to do that in the championship.

“We just made too many mistakes,” said Cowitch. “We can’t forget that we have some young guys in there that we do a lot, and it’s going to happen right now. That’s part of the growing pains of this team.”

Logan McGinley had a good floor game, scoring on tips, kills and blocks. Their front line scoring was also efficient as Joe Herman, Nick Herman, Ethan Parvel and Devin Martinez all made solid contributions, while setter Joey Maamari and libero Kyle Sayre had an impact as well.

Cowitch is presiding over a team who’s not satisfied to make it to the championship matches, they want to win.

In the second set, Whitehall was looking to even the match, coming from five points behind to eventually tie the set at 13-13. They traded points until an Emmaus kill careened off a block, giving the Hornets the 16-15 lead. From that point they stayed in command, riding Haag’s lethal jump serve to close out the match.

That seemed to be the storyline throughout the match as Whitehall could never get over the hump. Emmaus would continually stifle a rally with a side out and then widen the margin from the service line.