Like most teams, Emmaus came into the season with plans for winning a state championship. For much of the season that dream stayed alive and the team stayed right on track with gold medals in both the East Penn Conference and districts.

There was a tough awakening though in states where the Hornets went up against District 1 opponent Lower Merion and left the pitch at J. Birney Crum Stadium in Allentown on the wrong end of a 1-0 game.

“It was a tough loss, there’s no doubt about that,” said head coach John Cari of how his team’s season ended. “Once you get here [to states] you always know that unless you’re the state champion, your season is going to end in a loss, but to have it happen in a 1-0 game where we had chances, that’s tough.”

For a good chunk of the season, the team was ranked as the best soccer team in Pennsylvania and among the best in the country, according to various polls. The team rattled off wins in its first 13 games of the season and seemed to be getting better and better.

In their last seven games of the streak, the Hornets outscored opponents 38-2 with five shutouts. Needless to say, times were good.

Then came problems. It wasn’t that the team got overconfident or believed the hype. The Hornets weren’t guilty of looking ahead or anything else. Instead, injuries stung the team and at one point, Cari was down to just seven players who were truly healthy and a number of players were unavailable to play for the team. The injuries disrupted the team’s flow and substitution rotation, sending them into a three-game skid.

“Everybody really stepped up, so it wasn’t us hanging our heads or not having talented players to fill in,” said Cari. “The problem is that when you’re without so many guys, everything changes and we ran into some talented teams [Northampton, Parkland and Nazareth] and found ourselves losing three straight. To their credit though, they didn’t let it throw them. They knew we would get guys back and we would be healthy for the playoffs and that’s how it played out for us.”

The team won its final two regular season games and then worked its way through both the conference and district playoffs before heading to states. The District 1 area of the PIAA is the area surrounding Philadelphia and teams from that area are always tough, no matter where they finished in their district playoffs. It wasn’t an easy draw, but the Hornets certainly weren’t outmatched. Not long before what became the game-winning goal, Emmaus’ Jake Groh put a shot off the post and the team had other opportunities throughout the game.

“You always feel especially bad for the seniors,” said Cari. “This is a great group of guys and I’m going to miss them because they always worked hard and were committed to getting better and to making the team better. I’ve had a number of them for a long time and it’s going to be different without them.”

The team will say good-bye to seven seniors who graduate in the spring, leaving the team with some holes to fill for next season. The team finished the season 21-4-0 and the senior class went 66-23-6 over their four seasons. The 21 wins were the most since 2014. As a group, they collected an EPC championship, two District 11 championships and made three appearances in the PIAA playoffs.