It wasn't easy, but Emmaus stretched its win streak to five straight games with a 6-5 win over Central Catholic Saturday at Coca-Cola Park. Emmaus needed extra innings and had to come-from-behind in the bottom of the eighth, to pull out the win and stretch its record to 6-3 on the season.

After Central Catholic broke a 4-4 tie in the top of the eighth inning, the Hornets came to bat trailing by a run and went to work quickly to erase the deficit.

Austin Anderson led off the inning and reached when he was hit by a pitch. Teddy Tucker bunted him over to second in front of Teja Venigalla, who drew a walk. It looked like the rally was in danger of fizzling out when George Smith hit a high foul ball down the first base line that was caught for the second out of the inning, but Alex Marsh delivered a two-out single to tie the game at 5-5.

Joel Bartoni stretched the count to 3-2 on a couple of close pitches before driving a ball to short that Anthony Sorrentino had a tough time playing and then threw wildly to first, allowing Venigalla to score the winning run for Emmaus.

During the five-game winning streak, Emmaus has won three games by one run, two of which went extra innings. One other game was a two-run win, with just one comfortable four-run win in a game against Bethlehem Catholic.

"They're starting to set a trend here, where every game is going to be interesting, no matter how many runs we score right away," said head coach Mike Mihalik. "So this is one of those wins where we had to come back and we were probably in a situation where it might not have been looking great, but we found a way to get the job done somehow, someway."

For Bartoni, that last at-bat was just a matter of trying to drive the ball hard somewhere and hoping for the best.

"I tried to get up there, not get too excited, and just look for a pitch that I can handle," he said. "I got a 3-2 curveball and did the best that I could with it and hit it pretty hard. He had to make a tough play and he couldn't make it."

The Hornets squandered a four-run lead when the Vikings scored four times in the fifth inning to tie the game.

Emmaus got on the board when Marsh and Bartoni delivered back-to-back one out singles in the bottom of the first inning. One out later, Trey Hinkle lifted a high fly ball to left field that should have been the third out of the inning, but was dropped for a two-base error, allowing two runs to score.

Eric Cichocki added a run with an RBI single to put Emmaus up 3-0. Emmaus stretched the lead to 4-0 in the bottom of the fourth when Smith produced an infield single to drive home Anderson.

Trey Hinkle was the winning pitcher for Emmaus, going 3 1/3 innings. Starter Matt Lanzone threw 4 1/3 innings, allowing just two earned runs.

Emmaus was rained out Monday against Liberty, which was actually welcome news for Mihalik.

"We've burned all of our starters this week, with Teja [Venigalla] throwing Wednesday, Joel [Bartoni] threw Friday and Trey [Hinkle] threw a lot more than we had planned on today, but we needed to win this game, so we'll play it by ear," he said.

Bartoni believes the fact that the team is more comfortable and having more fun is the reason why they've been able to string together five straight wins after a slow start.

"We're just having a lot more fun," he said. "We're coming out for every game with a lot more energy and getting started earlier in the game rather than starting later and it's just a lot more fun."

Mihalik believed all along that once his team started to gain some confidence, they would prove to be better than many people thought they might be coming into the season.

"I said after that first week that all we had to do was put a couple of wins together, because when you start 1-3, you start pressing a little bit and guys start trying to do too much," he said. "Now that we've put a couple wins together and now that we're 6-3, they feel a little better. So now, hopefully, they can go out there and play the game the way that they know how."