Emmaus made it to the finals of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference field hockey playoffs before suffering a tough 1-0 loss to top-seeded Stroudsburg. That loss, and the nine days before the team's next game, may have served as motivation for the Lady Hornets' latest effort. They came out blazing against Pocono Mountain East in the District 11 Quarter-Finals, picking up a 10-0 win over the Cardinals. Maddy Dorn, Meredith Sholder and Alicia Cooperman all scored twice in the win, with Morgan Will, Chloe Tostevin, Tara Tracchio and Kira Koehler all adding to the score.

Dorn was the first to strike, just 1:10 into the game. Five minutes later, Sholder struck with her 41st goal of the season. After leading 4-0 at the half, the Hornets powered their way over the Cardinals in the last 30 minutes of the game.

"It was a very nice effort today," said coach Sue Butz-Stavin. "I think we were anxious to play after our last encounter, which was quite a while ago, but we had an opportunity to work on a lot of different situations, so that was good for us."

Senior Erika Wilson has served as one of the team's leaders, both on and off the field, during the season and assisted on the goal from Will. After the tough loss to Stroudsburg, Wilson isn't ready to end her high school career and believes the team is refocused after falling short of an EPC title.

"After our last tough game, we definitely came out strong today and scored a goal in the first minute and I think we really sent a statement," said Wilson, who was recently referred to as "the Mother Hen" of the team. "I always try to include everyone in everything and pick everyone up when they're down and just try to be a leader."

Emmaus and Stroudsburg are working their way through the District 11 bracket and appear to be on a collision course with one another in the district finals. Between now and then though, Emmaus has to get past Easton, who they haven't seen since the season-opener on August 29. The Hornets won that game 6-0, but Easton went 15-2-1 after that loss to win the Steel Division title. The Rovers lost in the first round of the EPC tournament to Parkland. Easton came into the district tournament as the No. 3 seed behind Stroudsburg and Emmaus and downed a tough Whitehall team in their first game to advance to the semifinals against the Hornets.

"They're an athletic team," said Butz-Stavin. "They've got Erica Tarsi, who has great speed and is a great athlete. It's been a while since we've seen her play and I'm sure her skills have been polished since then. Their goalkeeper, Alex Pennington, she got the all-star spot and they have a freshman, Hailey Couch, who has been doing a lot of scoring for them, so they've got a nucleus of nice players. For them to beat Whitehall, with Whitehall having played in tougher games, that was a big win for them."

Emmaus and Easton will open the semifinal double-header at Whitehall High School Wednesday and the winner will find out who their opponent will be when Stroudsburg goes up against fourth-seeded Northampton in the other semifinal match-up. Emmaus and Easton get started at 5 p.m., with Stroudsburg and Northampton following after the completion of that game. The District 11 finals will be back at Whitehall Saturday afternoon.

For her part, Wilson doesn't plan on letting any of her teammates look ahead to a possible rematch with Stroudsburg and looks to help drive her team to its 26th straight district title.

"We haven't played them [Easton] for a while, but I remember we had a good start against them," said Wilson. "We still have to practice hard and just think that it's going to be our hardest game and whoever wins gets to move on."