Baseball coach John Schreiner just wrapped up his 16th season at the helm of the Emmaus Hornets and it turned out to be a disappointing endeavor. Emmaus fell to Stroudsburg 8-5 in the District 11 playoffs.

The Hornets made four errors in the game and grounded into four double-plays, that cost them at key points in the game.

"Trouble fielding the ball again and we left too many outs out there again," lamented Schreiner. "It's been our problem all year and then when our pitching struggled a little bit, we just couldn't make the plays."

The Hornets started well, giving themselves a 2-0 lead after the first two innings of play. Jared Miller, who led the team in average (.439), hits (29) and runs (28), led off the game with a base hit and a stolen base. One out later, Jason Fatzinger singled to drive home Miller and Zach Fotta followed with another single to put runners on first and third with one out. That's when Stroudbsurg's defense stepped up and turned the first of their four double plays to end the Emmaus rally.

In the second inning, Jacob Pacheco singled to drive in Storm Schichtl, who was on base all four times he was up.

Emmaus had bases loaded with one out in the fourth, but that rally was stopped by a double-play ground ball. With runners on first and second in the fifth, Stroudsburg turned another double play, but Joel Bartoni was able to drive in one run with an RBI single. Baritone then stole second and went to third on a bad throw. Schichtl walked, but the Emmaus was unable to get the runner home from third.

The Hornets were down 7-3 in the sixth when they got a leadoff double from pinch hitter Andrew Mantone. Miller followed with a single and Dan Findlay lifted a flyball to center field to plate Emmaus' fourth run. Fatzinger delivered another RBI single to cut Stroudsburg's lead to 7-5, but the Mounties picked up an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth and got out of a first-and-second, two-out jam in the top of the seventh.

"We just make a couple plays, it's a different game," said Schreiner. "I think we had four errors. They made four double plays and we didn't make any. That's the difference in the game

"It is what it is. We struggle in practice and we struggle in games. We take hundreds, thousands of ground balls in practice and we struggle. We have trouble fielding the ball. There were how many double plays we could have turned?"

Schreiner was happy with what his team achieved this season, but believed it could have been even better.

"I'm not trying to be negative, because we fought. It's just that it's frustrating, because we've got more talent than we showed lately. About the 10th or 11th game of the season, we sort of peaked and after that, we struggled to hit. Although I thought we hit the ball a lot better today. We just weren't consistent."

In what came as a surprise and could be an offseason storyline for Emmaus baseball, Schreiner admitted that season number 16 could be his last.

"We'll see," he said. "I'm not 100 percent on anything. Right now I'm not enthused about anything. I'll say that for the first time, I'm not 100 percent. Nothing's guaranteed."