After six days off and practices hampered by rain and cold, blustery weather, the Northwestern Lehigh girls lacrosse team got back on the field when it traveled to Emmaus recently. The Lady Tigers came out slowly before battling back, but in the end, the Hornets proved too much for Northwestern, which lost 16-4.

Emmaus senior Brianna McClain scored six goals in the win as Emmaus outshot the Tigers 29-10.

Northwestern faced an early 2-0 deficit when it allowed two goals in the first 90 seconds of the game.

The Tigers pulled themselves back into the game when Cara Thomas scored with 9:36 left in the first quarter to cut the Hornets’ advantage in half.

After Emmaus added to its lead, Olivia Costa scored with 5:20 left in the first quarter and Sydney Wright scored just :26 later to make it a 3-3 game at the end of the first quarter.

“We have been playing a little better and I think we are playing better as a team, which is something I have been really big on this season is developing the teamwork,” said Bahnick. “We’ve done better at working together but I think we are still slacking at some times, and we have kept working on that as we go.”

Emmaus made some adjustments between quarters and dominated the play through the rest of the game, scoring 11 unanswered goals over the second, third, and fourth quarters to take a commanding 14-3 lead, which forced a running clock because of the 10-run rule.

Costa added her second goal of the game with 4:55 left to play to make it 14-4 before McClain added her final two goals for Emmaus.

“I think that we have learned we have a lot of things we need to work on, and it’s been difficult because we are playing teams that are really good and we haven’t had great weather to work on things in practice, so that makes it difficult,” said coach Jess Bahnick. “I think playing these tough teams will help us eventually, but it’s been a tough start.”

Northwestern Lehigh followed up its loss to Emmaus with a trip to play Southern Lehigh and suffered a 20-6 loss to the Spartans.

The Tigers picked up an opening day win over Northampton (1-7) and since then have run into three teams with a combined record of 23-6 this season. The result is a 1-4 start and the promise of better days ahead.

Northwestern plays at Parkland (3-4) and hosts Liberty (4-3) this week. The good news on the schedule does not really arrive until late April when the Tigers play Northampton (1-7) and then have two games each against Saucon Valley (1-4) and Moravian Academy (1-4).

“I think we will adapt as time goes on and we’ll be able to work together better than we have early in the season,” said Bahnick. “It’s been hard here in the beginning when we have so many hard games right off the bat and the limited practice time because of all the rain.”