It wasn't the type of ending Jeff Arbushites wanted for his Emmaus team at the District 11 wrestling tournament, but it was one that his group could walk away from with their heads held high.

The Hornets held an early 21-5 lead over Nazareth in last Thursday's preliminary round after the first five bouts of the match, but saw Nazareth take eight of the last nine bouts to storm away with a 45-24 victory.

The loss eliminated Emmaus from having a chance at battling back in the consolation rounds, but it was a scenario that Arbushites wasn't surprised about after his team was dealt a series of blows leading up to that match.

"We had a couple things working against us with our 170-pounder being injured," Arbushites said. "We found out [Thursday] morning that our 126-pounder was academically ineligible and I knew we needed to win the toss. We needed two of those three elements to legitimately have a chance against a team like that and we didn't get any."

Cole Franklin (160) and Thomas Alcaro (220) helped lead the charge early with pins for Emmaus, as Dan Oberle (182) added a decision, while Caleb Augustine (195) picked up a forfeit to give the Hornets the bulk of their points from the match.

But Walter Ortiz's 11-2 major decision over Colin Molitorisz at heavyweight started the Blue Eagles run of winning eight of the final nine bouts, all of which came with bonus points, to over take control of the match.

The lone victory for Emmaus during that stretch came from Tyler Corpora's 6-2 decision over Tyson Klump at 120.

"I think a couple of our kids could have wrestled better, but I think some of our guys also wrestled better than we expected them to," Arbushites said. "When you're wrestling a seasoned team like Nazareth, it's tough. We needed things to go our way and it just didn't happen for us, but I think our guys battled and competed."

The Hornets have one remaining dual meet against Bethlehem Catholic scheduled for February 12 and Arbushites hopes they can build from what they've accomplished this season heading into the individual postseason.

"I think we took away a pretty exciting January," he said. "This wasn't a bad loss on our end. This used to be a 70-10 type of score, so we take away that as a team we've developed and come together and now we have to do that as individuals heading into February and hopefully we can keep that going into March."