Sometimes in sports things just happen.

One can’t always explain why or how. They just happen.

For the Emmaus boys soccer team, that inexplicable thing is how its offense disappeared once the District 11 tournament began.

Somehow, the Hornets made it through the semifinal round of districts without scoring a goal, but in the finals the streak caught up to them, and they fell to Parkland 1-0 Saturday afternoon at Salisbury High School as the Trojans repeated as district champions.

The scoring slump had developed over time.

The team that scored 10 goals in three games during the regular season and 68 goals overall, suddenly hit the brakes near the end of the year.

A 2-0 win over Nazareth followed by a scoreless tie against Liberty led to a 1-0 loss to Parkland in the regular season finale. From there, Emmaus picked up three 1-0 wins – one of them in overtime – to win the EPC championship and in districts Emmaus downed Easton on penalty kicks to advance to the finals.

“It’s frustrating,” said Emmaus head coach John Cari. “We’re just having a hard time finding goals. I don’t think we played poorly. I think we controlled the possession, but we just couldn’t finish the ball.

“We need to work on it. It’s been a tough situation. We’re going to continue to figure out what we can do to get a goal out of things going forward.”

In Saturday’s finals, Parkland found an early goal and then turned things over to goalie Matt Feiller.

Just over six minutes into the game, a pair of seniors connected for what would be the lone goal. Anthony Bautista sent a ball over to Kerem Adali who fired a line drive that bounced past Emmaus goalie Gavin Yartymyk to go up early 1-0.

“Great goal by their player,” said Cari. “It just took a bad bounce. I thought Brennan Stack made a really good tackle to get out on the guy. Just where the ball landed, the kid was able to pick it up, take one little touch and hit a beautiful shot. He did a really great job,”

When a team’s offense is struggling, the last thing it needs is to run into a hot goalie.

Emmaus did just that in the form of junior Matt Feiller, who was making just his second start in place of starter Andrew Staples, who left the quarterfinal round game with an injury bringing in Feiller for his turn.

Feiller made eight saves on the day, including one with 10 seconds left in regulation as Emmaus had a long pass down field to senior Austen Breisch, who was in position to make a play. Feiller came out to make a leaping grab and took the opportunity away from Breisch.

Yakymyk made five saves in goal for Emmaus.

Both teams had already locked up spots in the PIAA tournament that begins this week.

The difference is that by virtue of being a district champion, Parkland will play their first round game at home while Emmaus (19-2-3) has to hit the road. Emmaus plays District 12 champion LaSalle College High School (13-5-3) in Wyndmoor and Parkland (21-1-1) hosts Springfield Township (16-6-0), the number four team from District 1.