The Emmaus boys soccer team made it through the toughest four game stretch on its schedule with a 2-2 record, taking losses against Parkland and Wilson West Lawn and getting wins over Easton and Liberty.

The losses were as different as night and day. Against the Trojans, Emmaus was completely outplayed from the very start, dropping a 7-0 decision to its Lehigh Valley Conference rivals.

Meanwhile, the Hornets took Wilson West Lawn to double overtime before dropping a 5-4 decision against last year's second-best team in Pennsylvania.

The wins were also very different as the Hornets shut out Easton 3-0 and took a hard fought 2-1 win over Liberty at Memorial Field.

"It was absolutely a tough stretch," said coach John Cari. "We knew that Parkland was going to be good, that's a rival game and we had a lot of bad opportunities and we really didn't play well and we didn't show up.

"We learned from it and played very well at Easton. And although we lost 5-4 in double overtime Saturday, we played really well and that's the state runner-up, so I'm not really disappointed at what the effort was.

"I schedule those games knowing there's a chance we're going to lose them, but I was pleased with it."

Cari hoped that the momentum of good outings against Easton and Wilson West Lawn would carry over to the contest with Liberty, but while he was happy to get the win and see his team move to 7-3-1 overall and 7-1 in the LVC, he wasn't very happy with his team's effort.

"We didn't necessarily play well," he said. "We knew they were a physical team and we gave them opportunities where they were able to score on the head ball. They're a momentum team and they played rah-rah and they brought it to us then. We need to compose ourselves and I don't think we did a really good job of that."

Senior Patrick Russell scored the first goal on a header into an empty net after goalkeeper Kenan Meral came out to stop a shot from Parker Landis. Instead, Landis moved the ball to Russell, who headed it into the goal to open the scoring less than 10 minutes into the game.

It took Liberty until the 9:25 mark of the first half to get on the board. Tom Epsaro took a corner kick from Chris Ebersole and drove it into the net to tie the score, which is how the game remained through the rest of the half.

Charlie Jerry got the ball to Kevin Kender just less than 15 minutes into the second half and Kender headed the ball past Meral as the Hornets regained the lead. Meral was able to deflect two other shots in the second half and saw another bounce off the top post of the goal as Emmaus kept pressure on, but couldn't come up with an insurance goal.

Cari pointed out specific issues defensively that have become problems for his team and that it needs to improve on throughout the rest of the season.

"We need to get healthy and have a little more composure on the ball," he said. "We need to work on set pieces defensively. We haven't been very good on it and that's what they scored on again today, so we need to work on it and lock down opportunities like that."

The Hornets play at Bethlehem Catholic Wednesday before hosting Freedom in a boys and girls double-header Saturday. The girls will host Freedom at 11:30, followed by the boys game against Freedom at approximately 1:30 as part of the Don Hunt Memorial Challenge.