The Emmaus boys basketball team had a rough end to its regular season. The Green Hornets lost two of their last three East Penn Conference games, and the only win was a tough, three-point victory against Central Catholic.

But even with a strong 2014-15 schedule, Emmaus (12-13 overall, 11-5 EPC) qualified for the league and district tournaments. And to continue with an up-and-down season, the Green Hornets fell to Allen in the first round of the EPC tournament, in what head coach Steve Yoder called "one of the worst games we've played all season."

It looked as if Emmaus' season was going to end for good after the first quarter of an opening round game in the District 11 Class AAAA tournament at Emmaus High School last Wednesday night. The No. 5 seed Green Hornets were trailing 12 seed Easton 23-13 after just one quarter.

But then Yoder and his team changed something. The head coach made some adjustments, and his team picked up the defensive intensity, and Emmaus rallied with a big second quarter to win the game 70-53 and advance to the quarterfinals to face Allen.

The Green Hornets outscored the Red Rovers 19-2 in the second quarter. Junior forward Joey Polczynski led the team with 18 points and nine rebounds. Polczynski shot 6-for-7 from both the floor and the foul line. Sophomore point guard David Kachelries added 15 points and senior Tyler Prescott finished with 14 points.

Easton found a lot of scoring early, as it made five of its first seven three-point attempts and led 23-13 when Hassan Greenfield, who had a team-high 14 points, drained an off-balance three-pointer at the first-quarter buzzer.

"I blame the beginning of the game on myself," Yoder said. "We had a game plan to pack it in and chase Greenfield all around. That's something we don't normally do. After that we went full-court man (defense) the rest of the way."

Then in the second quarter, Emmaus got back into the game. The Green Hornet defense caused nine Red Rovers turnovers, and Kachelries propelled his team into the lead with four straight points, and a couple of nifty assists.

"David is the catalyst of our team," Polczynski said. "When he plays well the whole team seems to play well. We didn't let the first quarter psych us out. Most teams would have got psyched out. We brought the pressure, made them turn the ball over and we were able to take advantage with layups."

Junior Brandon Rapose tallied five straight points and Micaiah Fraction added a three-pointer during that second quarter spurt.

And the third quarter was more of the same as Emmaus put it away, outscoring Easton 22-10. Junior Jake Feiertag scored all eight of his points during that span and Polczynski added six as the Green Hornets widened the margin to 54-35 heading into the fourth quarter.