The Emmaus boys basketball team overcame a 15-point second quarter deficit to win the opener of Lehigh Valley Conference play last Friday night at home 71-68 in overtime over Allen.

Nate Feiertag had a career-high night, scoring 27 points. He grabbed 11 rebounds on the night for the double-double.

"I wanted to play aggressively and attack," said Feiertag. "I didn't want to settle for jumpers, I wanted to get to the basket, get rebounds, and get in there and get foul shots."

His hustle and will was the theme of a Green Hornets defense that was put into an early hole by the red hot shooting of the Canaries.

Allen shot the lights out of the Emmaus gym. The Canaries were 8 out of 13 from beyond the arc, and 17 of 27 total in the first half.

The Green Hornets trailed 42-31 at halftime. The outside shooting was not as lethal for Emmaus, but the inside play of Feiertag, Joe Nicolini and Gabe Shankweiler helped to turn the tide for the Hornets.

Nicolini, who also had a career night with 18 points and eight rebounds, got a rebound and putback with 59 seconds left in the third quarter to give the Green Hornets their first lead of the game.

Emmaus came out fired up on both sides of the ball from the first whistle of the second half. The Green Hornets outscored Allen 18-8 to trail by just one after three quarters.

"We knew that for our offense to start working, we had to play defense," said Feiertag. "We needed to get stops, and try to dwindle their lead. We just tried to get as close as we could heading into the fourth quarter, and try to win it in the fourth quarter."

Allen seemed to regroup, and took a commanding nine-point lead early in the fourth, but the Green Hornets were not going to let their efforts of battling back go to waste.

Senior Derek Tannous hit his first three of the game, and Feiertag converted two from the charity stripe to tie the game at 62 with 1:40 remaining.

After the Canaries hit a jumper to take back the lead, senior Dan Brndjar may have saved the game for Emmaus. A missed shot was grabbed by Allen. Brndjar waited, and as soon as one dribble hit the court, he swiped the ball and laid it in to tie the game at 66 with 15 seconds left, and forced overtime.

"The shot went up, and I just wanted to crash the boards," said Brndjar. "The Allen guard didn't see me, and I saw the ball, grabbed it and put it in.

"We wanted them to put it on the floor more," added Brndjar on the team's improved defensive effort. "We played a lot better help defense, boxed out and played a lot more physical. We believed that we were going to win this game."

Allen tallied the first points of overtime, but a three-point basket from Tannous gave the Green Hornets the lead for good.

Tannous finished with nine points. Brndjar added eight, and Shankweiler contributed seven in the win.