Earlier in the season, as his team was rolling right along with a perfect record, softball coach John Eyer predicted there would be some rough spots for his team to get past at some point in the season.

The key would be how his team would handle that adversity and how quickly it could get past those spots.

Rough spots, in the form of Whitehall and Bethlehem Catholic, hit 10 days ago, giving the Lady Hornets back-to-back losses. How long did they last? Just those two games, and then Emmaus righted the ship and returned to winning, with three straight wins over Central Catholic, Nazareth and Pottsville.

Against Pottsville, Emma Schmick broke the game open with a three-run home run in the ninth inning, helping to lead Emmaus to a 11-7 win in extra innings. The Hornets had taken the lead earlier in the inning when Cassie Burke doubled home a run ahead of Schmick's homer. Ciara Wippel delivered a two-run home run earlier in the game as part of her three-hit day.

"It was good to see us put those two games behind us and move on," said Eyer. "This week will be the biggest test though, with the double-header with Parkland Wednesday, Liberty on Thursday and Whitehall on Friday."

Emmaus' weeklong test started on the wrong side of the ledger, with an 8-4 loss to Northampton on Monday, putting the Hornets at 10-3 overall and 8-3 in the EPC. The Skyline Division is pretty tight near the top, with Parkland at 11-0, Northampton at 8-3 and Whitehall at 7-6 in the conference.

While the double-header with Parkland looms large on the schedule, Eyer prefers to look at the big picture rather than putting too much significance on those two games.

"We aren't giving the Parkland double-header any more importance than the rest of the games," he said. "We have too many games left that are all important for EPC standings and district seedings."

Speaking of districts, Emmaus clinched a spot in the District 11 Tournament with their win over Pottsville on Saturday. Between now and then, there are still six games, four of them EPC contests, to be played in the regular season. Emmaus hopes to qualify for a spot in the EPC Tournament, which will be determined by those four remaining conference games.

While tough opponents remain on the schedule, things are getting back to at least some form of normalcy as far as the schedule is concerned. Weather forced a number of postponements for every team in the area, leaving teams playing a lot of games in a relatively short period of time. Eyer has juggled his pitching rotation when needed and thinks his staff is in good shape heading into the end of the season. He's preached fundamentals as a way of helping his team to handle so many games in so few days.

"It's going to take the best ball we can play," he said. "We need to minimize errors and miscues and find a way to use all of our pitchers effectively. There is little doubt that this is wearing on everyone, but they continue to bounce back and have a lot of fight left in them."

Wednesday's double-header with Parkland will have the two teams playing at Pate's Park this afternoon at 4 p.m., before the two teams head for Parkland and play a 7 p.m. game to wrap up the day. Friday's home game against Whitehall is the final home game of the regular season for the Lady Hornets.