The Emmaus defense continued to play tough soccer Monday night in an 8-0 win over East Stroudsburg South. Emmaus now has four straight shutout wins, having scored a total of 29 goals in those games. On the season, the Hornet have held opponents to just 12 goals in 11 games.

Against the Cavaliers (2-9 overall, 2-8 EPC), the Hornets got three goals from Gianna Albanese, two of which were set up perfectly by junior Maddie Brown, who also assisted on a goal by senior Sydney Cole.

In addition to Cole, four other players scored goals, including Grace Ashmar, a junior, who picked up her first varsity goal that gave Emmaus a 6-0 lead at the time.

Emmaus’ Lily Schmitt scored on a corner kick just under seven minutes into the game and a minute later, Lindsay Phillips made it 2-0. Brown and Albanese hooked up on their first goal of the night, which was perfectly executed with Brown coming down the right side and using a soft touch on her kick to center the ball to Albanese, who beat goalkeeper Jahna Knosphel with a shot to the corner of the net. The two hooked up on another beautifully executed play a little over two minutes later, using much the same technique, putting Emmaus up 4-0.

“We’ve always worked on that a lot and we’ve practiced that a lot, just dribbling up the sideline and getting the ball inside,” said Albanese. “It was really cool to be able to do that in the game. We worked really hard to get those goals and I was really proud of her for setting me up for that.”

As for the defense, Hornet head coach Sarah Oswald has been happy with how it has played and how its way of taking over a game has contributed to success on the offensive side of the field.

“Our back line has been super controlling of the game and has allowed us to keep possession and get us into position to score goals,” said Oswald. “Overall, I’m impressed and I hope that now that we’re getting back into divisional play that we can continue to play well and keep doing the right things.”

With a senior class of 14 players, there is plenty of leadership on the team, but there has also been room for younger players to make an impact. The mix of senior leadership and youthful exuberance has blended well and helped both group of players.

“The girls who joined our team after playing JV last year, plus our freshmen, have really stepped up and pushed our varsity kids that have been here,” said Oswald. “We found a new spark and life for soccer again and I contribute that to the underclassmen that came up. But I also think that looking at our seniors and their level of play has made those girls rise and become a part of it and join the rest of the team and let them know what their expectation is.”

Getting back to playing their division rivals means the toughness of the schedule is going to pick up greatly. They have two games remaining with Central Catholic (7-3-1, 6-3-1), road games at Nazareth (7-4-0, 6-4-0) and Whitehall (6-4-0, 6-4-0) and home games against Northampton (8-3-1, 6-3-1) and Parkland (11-0-0, 10-0-0).

Whitehall downed Emmaus 3-2 earlier in the season and in the first meeting of the season with Parkland, Emmaus played the Lady Trojans tough and held a 2-1 halftime lead before falling 3-2. The rematch takes place Monday at Memorial Field.

“That’s been one of our main goals and that’s what we’ve been looking forward to,” said Albanese about getting another shot at the undefeated Parkland team. “We want to play Parkland again and show them what we have. I feel like we’ve gotten better as a team and we’ve gotten closer and we’re all excited to be playing them.”

Oswald is excited by what she sees as a team that is hitting its stride at the right time of the season.

She had high expectations coming into the year and her players are working to hit all of their goals.

“It’s a really talented group that we have this year and we’ve been saying it since the preseason,” Oswald said. “We have players who are coming up with quality goals and the team plays hard no matter what our opponent looks like.

“Lindsay [Phillips] and Gianna [Albanese] are two of our top scorers and we have Lily Schmidt and Grace Eisenhard, who are continuing to get assists and put the ball in dangerous places.”