Emmaus golf head coach Patrick Birns had a decision to make last week.

His team has depth this season and for last week’s East Penn Conference Championships he had to designate five players that were competing for the Hornets’ team score.

The decision wasn’t easy.

Two players made for viable options as the fifth and final pick. Both would still play in the event, but one would play only as an individual and the other would play both individually and for the team.

“All year it’s been between Alexis [Teichman] and Greyson [Schmidt] being our fifth player,” Birns said. “I thought I’d take the pressure off of [Teichman] and said ‘you don’t have to play for the team; just go win a gold medal.’

“She was a little bit disappointed that she wasn’t going to score for the team, but it paid off.”

Teichman, a senior, followed her coach’s orders and won the league title.

She shot 86 in the event, held Monday, Sept. 15 at Great Bear Golf Club in Stroudsburg, to win by five strokes over Freedom’s Audrina Montasano (91).

“She played pretty well,” Birns said of Teichman. “To put a gold medal around her neck was pretty special. It wasn’t even close to her best round [this season] and that’s exciting.”

Teichman heads into next week’s District 11 Championships with an opportunity to earn another gold medal. She recently played against the player who will be her top competition at districts.

Emmaus played Southern Lehigh last week in a Ryder Cup style match and Birns said Teichman beat the Spartans’ Lexi Miller in the event.

Miller, who will compete in next week’s Class 3A field, won last week’s Colonial League Championships by one stroke over defending league champ Mara Dubacher of Moravian Academy, who will compete in the 2A tournament next week.

“I think [Teichman is] ready to play well at The Steel Club,” Birns said, citing the course where districts will be held next week.

For his part, Schmidt also did what his coach asked last week, earning the second-best team score for Emmaus.

Kyan DeLong led the team at the league championship with an 80 for 9th place. Schmidt tied for 10th with an 81.

Other Hornets in the field at Great Bear included Francis Anderson (82), Silas Welhoener (85), Ben Nichols (86), Boden Rainford (88) and Evan Walters (89) in the boys tournament. Teammate Ella Bloszinsky shot 94 to take fourth place in the girls league tournament.

Emmaus, which went 14-2 overall this season and 13-2 in EPC matches, is one of four teams in Class 3A that will compete for a District 11 team title next week.

Despite a late-season loss to Parkland, 393-402, the Hornets finished third in the district rankings with the Trojans fifth, behind a Pocono Mountain East team that dealt the Trojans an upset loss early in the season that turned out to be costly.

“Season was pretty good,” said Birns. “We’d like to get that one back from Parkland. The fact that we’re now qualifying for districts is a big thing. We haven’t played in districts since I’ve been involved.”

The Hornets will try to knock off a mighty Nazareth team that went undefeated and beat Emmaus by two strokes in the regular season despite missing one of it’s top players that day.

DeLong leads team at District 11 Qualifier

While no Hornet boys players finished in the top five at the league tournament to earn exemptions from the District 11 qualifying tournament, several of them came back with solid play Monday at the district qualifier, held at Northampton Country Club.

DeLong won the event with a 2-over par 74 to finish two shots ahead of Liberty’s Andrew Erfle Monday.

The Hornet senior started his round with bogeys on three of his first four holes. He played the rest of the course at 1-under par, carding birdies on the fifth, seventh and 15th holes. His bogeys came on 1, 3, 4, 13 and 14, and he made nothing higher than bogey for the round.

The Hornets’ Silas Welhoener, a junior, shot 77 to finish tied for fourth place Monday and qualify for districts. Hornet sophomore Anderson Francis shot 84 and also qualified, finishing 21st in a field of 59 Class 3A players.

The top 30 boys, plus ties, earned a spot in next week’s district championship.

Emmaus had seven players with season averages low enough to earn places in the field Monday.

Schmidt, a sophomore, shot 86 to tie for 32nd place and miss qualifying by one stroke. Nichols, a junior, shot 88 Monday, while seniors Rainford and Ryan Maloney carded a 90 and 93, respectively.

Walters also made the district championship tournament, earning an exemption based on reaching last year’s state championship tournament.