The Emmaus girls basketball team looks to turn around its misfortunes from last season that saw it go winless in the East Penn Conference and finish with a 2-20 overall record.

Even coming off of a rough season, this year’s team seems to have a bit more spring in its step than in recent years and appears poised to start turning things around behind head coach Kelsey Gallagher, who enters her third season as the team’s head coach.

“This year’s group is really fun and with the 24 players we have [between varsity and JV], there’s not a sour one in the bunch,” said Gallagher. “They all enjoy being around each other and are really working hard. Their attitude helps a lot when we’re going through a two-and-a-half-hour practice or during the summer when we were playing and it was hot and everybody was tired.

“They just keep picking each other up and work their way through it.”

In a scrimmage against Southern Lehigh recently, Gallagher did see an old nemesis arise that she hopes the team can find a way to eliminate.

In one 10-minute stretch against the Lady Spartans, the Hornets looked unbeatable as they connected on crisp passes and hit on shots from all angles.

In their next 10-minutes of play, they fell into some old habits and looked a little complacent and unable to connect well.

“That’s something that we’ve seen even during the summer,” Gallagher said. “We can be perfect for one stretch and then all of a sudden, the good things we were doing disappear and we’re back to making some mistakes and look complacent.

“That also goes with having a fairly young team, too.”

This year’s roster has just three seniors – Lexi Brader, Alyssa Burkhart and Brooke Wunderler – all of whom have varsity experience and give the team leadership to depend upon. Behind the senior group are four juniors in Steph Klemick, Gabby Martin, Bianca Rollins and Marah Sisonick.

Gallagher has been impressed with the play of her senior and junior players and how they have helped to provide leadership for the younger players on the team.

“We have some experienced players and they’ve helped to set the tone for the younger players throughout the summer and into our practices,” said Gallagher. “We think they can help to get things turned around for us and start to instill more of a winning attitude.

“We always focus on defense and the girls have worked hard to think defense first. The good thing is that we think we also have some girls who can shoot a little bit to help the offense.”

The season opens with two nonconference games against good teams. Friday night, Emmaus hosts Boyertown and then has a quick turnaround to play Northwestern Saturday afternoon on the road.

Things get really interesting when Emmaus starts league play the following Tuesday when it hosts perennially tough Parkland.

“We’re going to find some things out very quickly about how good we can be,” said Gallagher. “Boyertown and Northwestern are good teams and then we know all about how good Parkland can be, so we jump right into the competition this year and it’s going to be interesting.”

A good start to the season would go a long way in helping the Hornets to build some early confidence that could help carry them through the long season.

As the younger players start to put some varsity experience under their belts, the team looks to grow throughout the season.

“Playing this summer really helped, but you have to get into games during the regular season to really judge where you’re at and how everybody is picking things up,” said Gallagher. “We’re happy with how things have gone so far and we’re looking to just keep building on the good things we’ve been doing and stay consistent.

“That’s ultimately what is going to determine how the season goes.”