Freedom’s Lady Pates hung with Emmaus, trailing by just three points at the half, but Emmaus coach Kelsey Gallagher stressed defense at the break, and third-quarter adjustments paid off for the Hornets with a 47-29 victory last Tuesday night at Freedom.

Patriot senior Natalie Stannard led off the scoring for both teams, hitting a three pointer after almost five scoreless minutes.

Teammate and senior guard Kailey Turpening sank three free throws after being fouled at the start of the second quarter. Soon after, Allie Sena intercepted an Emmaus pass, and Jordan MacIlroy landed two more points for the Pates, followed by a three from Keturah Stewart.

Paige Inman, Kameron Watkins, Grace Oglesbee, and Taylor Griffith combined for Emmaus’s second-quarter points that gave the Hornets the slim lead.

“Turpening did a really nice job at attacking the basket, and she did a really nice job of making the extra pass to her teammates,” said Gallagher. “We weren’t rotating, so we talked about what that rotation should look like, what we should do offensively against their defense because they did a little bit of a matchup zone, which is a little different from what we’re used to.”

The Hornets took control midway through the third quarter, forcing turnovers and capitalizing on those when Inman scored two consecutive layups, and Watkins grabbed a ball tipped by Freedom for a bucket.

“Today, I was able to pump fake and drive on them a lot,” Watkins said. “[Kailey Turpening’s] a really great shooter and passer so it was kind of difficult to figure out how to lock her down, and at halftime, we were able to figure out what to do by slipping under her screens and then following the passer while also keeping in front of her, so we were able to avoid the pass and avoid the shots.”

Emmaus widened the margin in the fourth quarter while holding Turpening to seven points on the night. Stannard and Ciana Feliciano had four points apiece in the final eight minutes.

Also on Tuesday, Bethlehem Catholic came from behind to defeat Northampton, 63-57, at Becahi.

“Our girls did a great job of showing second half resilience coming back,” said Becahi coach Jose Medina. “We put ourselves in a hole during the first half with some ugly carry-over of the previous night’s fourth quarter versus Cardinal O’Hara. In the second half, we played with more confidence in taking shots, handling the basketball, and playing hard defense forcing turnovers.”