With a number of new faces on the roster and a bit of an uneasy feeling about how her team would open the season, Emmaus field hockey coach Sue Butz-Stavin was pleasantly surprised when the Lady Hornets came out of the gate with a 6-0 win over Easton.

"I'm very pleased with the win," she said. "It was a good way to start the season.

"I'll admit, I was nervous because I didn't know how they were going to take the field today, but I thought our girls did an excellent job."

One of those young players, sophomore Maddy Dorn put on a strong performance, leading the Hornets offense with two goals. Another sophomore, Meredith Sholder, who was a big part of the Emmaus offense as a freshman, got the first goal of the season for the team on a penalty corner just 6:31 into the game, and assisted on Dorn's second goal of the day. Sophomore Kira Koehler assisted on Dorn's first goal. Freshman Leah Zellner scored her first goal of the season as well.

The upper classmen weren't shutout though, as senior Tara Tracchio and junior Alicia Cooperman also scored goals in the game for Emmaus.

One key that Emmaus will be able to use this season is flexibility. Throughout the game, Butz-Stavin was able to mix and match players and move players from one position to another, which kept Easton off balance.

That strategy could play a big role in helping to create opportunities, especially early in the season as the team looks to replace some of the offense that it lost to graduation.

"We're very fortunate, because our players are flexible," said Butz-Stavin. "We can move players into different spots and it gives us some mismatches on the field and gives teams a number of different looks that they have to defend."

Defensively, the team didn't seem to miss a beat from its strong defensive style of 2013 and the defenders, along with senior goalie Tori Laczo, didn't give the Red Rovers many opportunities to turn up the pressure. Butz-Stavin believes that Laczo will be a key component to the team's continued defensive success.

"She has experience back there and she does a good job of communicating with the defenders and leading the defense for us," Butz-Stavin said of her senior goalie. "It's always nice when you've got that type of leadership that you can go to."

The team continues Eastern Pennsylvania Conference play with home games against Freedom on Thursday and Nazareth on Monday. Next Wednesday, the Hornets travel to Northampton to battle the Konkrete Kids.