With a strong feeder system, it’s not surprising that a freshman would have a standout season for Emmaus field hockey. It’s happened before and it will likely happen again. This season, it’s happening with Rachel Herbine, who scored her 51st goal in a 4-1 win over Easton that gave Emmaus its 31st consecutive district championship.

The 51 goals puts Herbine in some pretty strong company. Emmaus has one of the four high school players to rack up over 200 goals in a career in Meredith Sholder, who is currently playing at the University of North Carolina. Sholder finished her high school career with 215 goals.

For Herbine, having success as a freshman hasn’t caught her completely off guard since she felt prepared to play varsity coming in, but exactly how much success she has had scoring goals has been a pleasant surprise.

“I thought that I would do well, I just didn’t think that I would do this well in this atmosphere,” said Herbine. “I wasn’t really sure how I was going to do, but my sister [junior Annika Herbine] helped me through it and my teammates have been really nice to me and welcomed me coming in.”

Herbine has had her sister and a veteran coaching staff to get her through her freshman season. Prior to coming to high school, Rachel Herbine had some help learning skills from one of the best: Meredith Sholder.

“When I was little, she was my LMYA coach and I always looked up to her,” said Herbine. “I don’t think she knew me that well, but I just really enjoyed watching her play.”

For Annika Herbine, having a younger sister on the team and watching her be successful has been a good experience and the two have another season after this one to spend together on a team that is the very early favorite for a 32nd District 11 championship.

“It is nice,” said Annika Herbine. “We really learn a lot from each other and from each other’s mistakes and what we each do well.”

Perhaps Rachel Herbine will wind up heading somewhere like the University of North Carolina when her high school career is done, but if her older sister has anything to say about it, the girls will be reunited on a field again in college. Annika Herbine is heading to the University of Iowa to play field hockey after high school and is giving her younger sibling quite a sales pitch.

“I’m trying,” she said. “But I’m not sure if she’s going to follow me out there.”

Rachel Herbine is shy about any comparisons to Sholder, but as for whether the student can surpass the teacher, she has adopted an approach to the game that sounds wise beyond her years and field hockey experience.

“I don’t know how the years are going to progress,” said Rachel Herbine. “We may need to adjust and I think that I’m scoring a lot of goals because I’m that center-forward and I happen to be there a lot of times. I think as the years go forward, we’re going to have to adjust who goes in what positions because we’re going to lose people. You never know.”