Emmaus girls lacrosse head coach Roxann Betz is entering her third year at the helm of the program. She is no longer new to her players and their talents, and her players know what is expected of them.

Last season showed what the Hornets are capable of and can be capable of as they finished the 2018 campaign 25-16 and qualified for both the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference and District 11 Tournament.

Like every year, Emmaus said goodbye to some key pieces to last year’s success with the graduations of Paige Weaver, Lizzy Ninesling, Cammie Purtell, Megan Carter, Zoe Kocis and Taran Campion.

The leaders of this year’s team will come from the senior class, which includes attack Grace Hall (52 goals, 21 assists), midfielder Taylor O’Brien (62 goals, 30 assists), defender Kellyn Kunkle (11 forced turnovers) and goalie Chloe Gerhard (149 saves).

Junior attackers Emma Schoenly (8 goals, 17 assists) and Tori Brinckman (7 goals, 7 assists) along with junior midfielder Kaitlyn Csensits (26 goals, 8 assists) bring back some star power from last season, along with sophomore defender Nesiah Bertram (22 forced turnovers) who also saw time last year.

Sophomore attack Ally Shaffer and freshmen defenders Maribeth Smith and Julia Cote are newcomers that will be looked upon to contribute this season.

“We want to play as a unified team and improve upon last year’s record,” Betz said. “Our goal is to always qualify for EPC and District 11 playoff berths.

“One of our strengths is that we are a positive, hard-working and unified team,” said Betz. “But we are younger than we were last year so we will need to become game-ready and get some experience.”

Emmaus opens against Upper Perkiomen on Friday at home in a nonconference game at 4 p.m.

Betz said her team “has strong leadership from our senior and junior classes. We have some young talent entering the program and look for some key contributions from our sophomore and freshmen classes. We expect to contend with Parkland, Easton and Freedom for league and district championships.”