Emmaus High School softball head coach Brittany D’Agostino described the 2021 season as a roller coaster. Just like in life over the course of the last year-plus, there were things to overcome and also things to be proud of.

“We had a little bit of a roller coaster season,” said D’Agostino. “In life you have many ups and downs and we experienced many this year. We kept pushing through the hard times and tried to remember we are so lucky to be playing right now. It felt amazing for the coaches and players to step on the field this year.”

The Green Hornets finished the year with a winning record at 12-10 overall and were 11-5 in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference. They qualified for both the East Penn Conference and District 11 postseason tournaments.

“It meant the world to the players and coaches to make the league and district playoffs,” D’Agostino said. “We had some ups and downs during the season, so our end goal was to make playoffs and districts. We met our goal and in the end that’s what mattered the most.”

Emmaus dropped its final game of the year to rival Parkland, 3-0 last week in the district quarterfinals.

“Parkland is a tough team,” D’Agostino said. “We had amazing energy from the beginning and to the end. But Parkland capitalized on errors and came up big in the end. We played them very well. We wanted our kids to give it their all and they did. I was happy with their performance.”

But that loss doesn’t take away the fun and team camaraderie that the Green Hornets had this season, from the players to the coaching staff.

“The last few weeks of practice we made them themed practices,” said D’Agostino. “The players would get to pick a theme, for example Disney, patriotic, Emmaus, 1980s. It made me happy to see the kids having so much fun. We truly enjoyed the last few weeks of our season.”

Emmaus will graduate seven seniors from the program, including Vanessa Anders, Carly Anderson, Lily Bruckler, Megan Cunningham, Natalie Lazaro, Kira Ryan and Marah Sisonick. This group started its varsity careers when D’Agostino began her coaching career at Emmaus.

“We had seven seniors,” said D’Agostino. “These seven seniors were part of the program when I started four years ago. They represented Emmaus High School well. They were enjoyable kids to be around and I know the program will miss them greatly.”