The Emmaus girls were a team that was able to focus on defense last season, but that could be a little different this year.

The team suffered a lot of losses through graduation and will have some unfamiliar faces in the lineup at spots, but many of them have some varsity experience, so it is certainly not like the Lady Hornets are starting from square one.

Head coach Sarah Oswald, who is entering her seventh season at the helm of the team, has never shied away from giving younger players game experience and this is the type of situation where that comes in handy.

Players who are stepping into starting roles or expanded playing roles with the team have at least some varsity experience and are not going to be caught unprepared.

“Every year there is some anticipation and when we look at who our returning players are, we see a lot of depth and we see depth from a lot of our younger kids,” said Oswald. “We had a couple of freshmen on the varsity team last year that played significant minutes and they are seasoned.

“We’re also looking for a lot of leadership from our seniors, but also, some of those younger players with experience with several juniors who are three-year starters and sophomores who will be two-year starters. I’m excited about the people that we return this season.”

While graduation hit the defensive unit hard, Oswald has senior goalkeeper Molly Lineberger returning. Junior Madison Woodward anchors the midfield after scoring four goals and handing out six assists in her sophomore season last year.

The season is still a week away and the team continues to put in their final preparations for the season.

The roster has eight seniors, seven juniors, five sophomores and three freshmen, all of whom Oswald figures will see a respectable number of minutes in games this season, although the official starting lineup and rotation of players is still a work in progress.

“We have a couple of sophomores that are joining us from the JV team, and we have three freshmen that made the varsity roster, and they will see significant minutes,” said Oswald. “We’ve really only had a few training sessions together as a group, so deciding on starters hasn’t happened yet. All of our seniors look to be leaders in some way, whether it’s being a vocal leader or just in the way that they play or how fit they came into the season.

“Each of them brings something really unique to us and it’s been a really long time since we’ve had a whole class that just looks to lead instead of just one or two players.”

Last year’s abbreviated schedule and no conference playoffs was unfortunate but necessary because of COVID. This season, the East Penn Conference will have three divisions of six teams with schools playing each division rival twice and then playing games against most of the other conference teams.

Emmaus is in the West Division with Allen, Central Catholic, Northampton, Parkland and Whitehall, giving the Hornets plenty of competition.

Parkland is always tough, but the Trojans graduated eight starters from last year’s squad.

The 2020 version of the Vikettes won a District 11 Class 2A title and went to the PIAA semifinals. They bring some key players back for 2021.

The East Division will also have some firepower with Nazareth coming off their second straight appearance in the district semifinals and Easton having a potent offense with several returning players.

“I really don’t know what the teams from other divisions are going to bring this year because we didn’t see them last season,” said Oswald. “They changed the divisions, and this is the first that we’re going to be able to see those changes. I’m looking forward to a full schedule and looking forward to seeing teams that we haven’t played since two years ago.”