The Emmaus boys volleyball team recently experienced something it had not in over a year: a loss in league play.

The Hornets (8-1) won their first seven Eastern Pennsylvania Conference matches to begin the year, continuing a streak that spanned all of their league matches in 2018. But last Thursday night at Whitehall, Emmaus suffered its first setback in two seasons, falling to the Zephyrs (9-0) in straight sets.

That must not have sat well for the current group of players, and it did not take long to get back to its winning ways. Emmaus defeated Pocono Mountain West 3-0 by scores of 25-9, 25-11 and 25-19 last Monday night at Emmaus High School.

“It was good for us to get right back out there and get back on our feet and get a win,” said senior libero Harrison Dottery. “It was an eye-opening loss [against Whitehall] because a bunch of us were on that team last year that didn’t lose in conference. But it exposed what we need to improve on.

“[Monday’s] win was definitely a confidence booster.”

Two days after the Whitehall match, the Hornets competed in the large field of the Koller Classic tournament Saturday at Central York High School. Emmaus was missing two regulars from the lineup, but still won a few matches at the event.

“I thought we played all right for being down a couple of players,” Dottery said. “We could’ve done better, but there was some really good competition.”

Dottery had a light night Monday, coming up with only nine digs, but the Cardinals (3-6) did not help him out much with their hitting. With lopsided scores in the first two sets, PM East found it difficult at times to get good hits over the net on rallies.

The Green Hornets took big leads early in the first two sets and never let the foot off the gas in taking a 2-0 lead.

In the third set, the Cardinals battled from start to finish, and an 8-2 run to close out the game helped Emmaus pull away and take the third set.

Even on a somewhat easy night, there were still things to be learned.

“We want to make sure we’re implementing what we’re doing at practice into live action,” said Dottery. “This was a good match to not only get some of the younger guys some action but also to work on some different hitting and different lineups to see what works and what doesn’t.”

Stephen Reynolds led the way with 10 kills and added eight digs. Bryce Diehl tallied six kills and both Mark Swedberg and Miguel Abadilla had four kills. Gannon Defrain contributed 31 assists and five digs.

Emmaus is at Northampton Wednesday in its lone remaining match this.