The last time that Emmaus (19-3) and Freedom (11-10) boys soccer teams met, Emmaus beat the Patriots 6-0 in the quarterfinals of the EPC playoffs.

Freedom downed East Stroudsburg South in the first round of districts to force the rematch with Emmaus in the quarterfinals.

While Freedom played a much stronger game than in the last meeting, the Patriots were still outplayed by Emmaus, who picked up a 2-0 win to advance to the District 11 semifinals.

With 22:27 left in the first half, Emmaus came close to taking a lead, but the goal was called off because of a penalty. The two teams battled for another 10 minutes until Andrew Gaines fired a shot on goal that got past goalkeeper Matt Thomsen as the Hornets grabbed a 1-0 lead on Gaines’ unassisted goal.

“You talk about development over the four years, he’s had a really good trajectory for us and has done a really good job,” said Emmaus head coach John Cari about Gaines, who missed two games this season because of an injury. “His work rate is high and his touch has been good and he’s a dangerous player. We really look to get him opportunities.”

Emmaus came out looking for a quick goal in the second half and found one in the seventh minute of the half when Jake Groh took a pass from A.J. Febbraro off of a penalty corner and played it into the goal to give Emmaus a two-goal edge in the game.

Freedom found opportunities for goals in the second half, but was turned away by goalkeeper Chris Buck, who made four saves in the half. Thomsen was strong in goal for Freedom and turned aside six shots in the game.

“I didn’t think we were especially great defensively, because we need to be tighter in a lot of those situations,” said Cari. “We need to connect more passes and move the ball, but we had some errant passes. Maybe there was a little rust on us, but we should be able to work it off for Stroudsburg.”

Gaines is happy to be back in the lineup and contributing in the playoffs. The team struggled through a stretch of injuries for a chunk of the season, but is healthy now and playing well at just the right time.

“It feels good to score any goal, but once you get to playoffs, the goals mean that much more,” said Gaines. “Any of these games could be our last game, so scoring obviously was very important. It was hard [to miss games] because I wanted to play and get back in there. I only missed two games, but I can’t imagine what it was like for the guys who had to miss more, because I know how frustrating it is.”

Emmaus advanced to face Stroudsburg, the number-five seed, who beat fourth-seeded Easton in the Class 4A quarterfinal game. Stroudsburg and Emmaus didn’t play during the regular season, giving Cari some scouting work to do on the Mounties.

“We see it game-by-game,” said Cari. “The next round is the most important game of the season, because it not only gets you one more game, it gets you two because if you’re in the finals, then you’re playing at least one state game. It’s important to be sure that we’re ready for that game, so we’ll learn a little bit about Stroudsburg and see where we are and go up against them.”

The team is taking it game-by-game, but every win is another round they can check off on their bucket list of things to accomplish this season in their quest to reach a lofty goal.

“I think that the goal is the same thing that our goal was from the beginning of the year,” said Gaines. “I want to go to the state finals and win a state championship.”

The district semifinal game was played Tuesday, after Press deadlines. A semifinal win would put Emmaus in Thursday’s district title game against either Parkland or Whitehall.