Emmaus opened the Lehigh Valley High School Baseball Tournament with a 10-3 win over Salisbury and didn’t stop until it had rattled off seven straight wins to take possession of the championship banner after a 7-5 win over Parkland in the tournament final.

“This is a great feeling,” said Hornet catcher Jadon Diaz after the win over the Trojans at Coca-Cola Park. “It was so awesome to get out here and play again and then to win it all is just great.”

For Emmaus, pitching was much of the story, with the team collecting three shutout wins in a row and holding opponents to just 13 runs in the seven games. Vince Petrizzi threw a shutout against Northwestern in a 1-0 win to wrap up pool play for the Hornets and then returned to give coach Jeremy Haas six-plus innings in the win over Parkland. Petrizzi also came on in the semifinal game against Northampton to get a key out in the sixth inning.

“I wanted to win this one to get a good seed going into the weekend,” said Petrizzi after the win over Northwestern. “Diaz and I had a good game plan and we just came out and executed. We wanted to pound the strike zone early and work in and that worked for us.”

Wyatt Henseler was a hitting machine for Emmaus and was named the tournament’s MVP. Henseler launched three home runs in the tournament, including going deep in two of the last three games. His three-run home run against Freedom put Emmaus up 4-0 at the time and on Monday, he had a two-run home run in the bottom of the first to tie the game with Parkland at 2-2.

The heroics didn’t stop there as Henseler had a key double in the win over Northampton and a walk-off double in a 1-0 win over Northwestern.

“I wasn’t getting a lot of strikes early on and I like to hit the first pitch, so I just went up there looking to put a good swing on a pitch and hit something hard,” said Henseler of the game-winner against the Tigers. “I have to give props to my teammates [Matt Madigan and Tyler LePage] for getting on and giving me a chance.”

Madigan and LePage, who hit directly ahead of Henseler, were consistently on-base to give Henseler RBI opportunities. Madigan also made diving catches at key points in the final two Emmaus games to keep runs off the board for the Emmaus pitching staff.

As good as the offense was, Emmaus also got good pitching not just from Petrizzi, but from their entire staff. Braden Waller threw 6 1/3 shutout innings against Freedom to send Emmaus into the semifinals where they beat Northampton 7-3 with Joe O’Brien giving the Hornets five strong innings.

In the win over Parkland, the two teams battled early on and Parkland took a 3-2 lead in the top of the third inning. In the bottom of the inning, Emmaus had six straight batters reach base, starting with a one-out single by Madigan. LePage then singled and Henseler was hit by a pitch to load the bases for O’Brien, who worked a walk to tie the game.

Diaz then stepped to the plate and lifted a two-run double to right ahead of Waller, who also drove in two runs with a single to center to put the Hornets up 7-3.

“It was kind of predictable,” said Diaz of his two-run double. “He was a lefty and his pitches were tailing away from me. Coach said to keep a backside approach and hit it to right field and that’s exactly what I did.”

Diaz had the best seat in the house to watch the Emmaus pitching staff at work and noted just how good the pitching was.

“Petrizzi did very well today and without him in this tournament, I don’t know that we would have come this far,” said Diaz. “Our entire staff really pitched well and just executed everything perfectly. I can’t say enough about our pitchers.”

While the team didn’t get to play a full season and pursue a shot at a district championship that it fell just short of in 2019, the Hornets’ success in the tournament provided at least some measure of retribution.

“You could have played 13, 15 or 20 more games depending how long the season would go in the regular season, but that got wiped out,” said coach Jeremy Haas. “At the end of the day, we got to practice for about a month and a half for this, we got to play at Limeport three times, which is where our senior night would have been, and we got to play at Coca-Cola Park twice.

“Maybe we didn’t have the length that you wanted for a season, but we sure had the impact and the things that mattered like the wins and the close games and the fun, so I put this championship right there with an EPC or district title; it means a lot to this program.”