Last year’s Eastern Conference title was a nice consolation for a team that missed the district playoffs. But that prize isn’t what Hornet head coach Harold Fairclough was referring to when he made the following statement less than a week before the start of the 2016 season, his first at the helm of the Emmaus program.

“I told the kids a key for us is to learn how to practice like a championship team,” said Fairclough. “Because ultimately we want to win a championship. We have to learn how to do that. We’re taking some steps. We have to 100 percent buy into it. I think we’re getting there.”

Over the past decade Emmaus has become a respectable program in the Lehigh Valley. But the team wants to take the next step and become one that competes for district titles.

Despite the graduation of 2,000-yard rusher Kyle Boney from last year’s team, this year’s Hornets feel like they can build on last year’s 7-5 record.

“We just want to move the program in the right direction,” said senior Kyle Carraher. “Obviously everybody’s goal is to make the district playoffs. We just need to stay disciplined and everybody needs to do their job. If we do that we should be fine.”

Carraher is a returning two-year starter at defensive end and tight. He’s played in every game over the past two seasons.

This year he’s moving to offensive tackle to help make up for the loss of all five starters on the interior line. He’ll play up front with first-year starters Andy Roche (Jr., center) Matt Nimas (Jr., guard), Austen Kasaczum (Jr., guard) and Mike Reeves (Jr., tackle).

“These guys are really young and don’t have a whole lot of experience, which concerns me,” said Fairclough. “As long as we can jell together up front and our quarterback makes good decisions I think we’ll be all right.”

Emmaus replaces Boney with running backs Lubens Myers and Sone Ntoh.

“A lot of people are talking about Kyle Boney not being back there,” said Fairclough. “He’s not easy to replace, but we have two young kids who’ve shown a lot of promise in Lubens Myers and Sone Ntoh. Those are our two sophomores that are going to be sharing the load.”

Receivers will be Josh Artis, Brian Mantone, Drew Schwindenhammer and Aaron Figueroa.

With four days remaining before the start of the season, Fairclough was still evaluating his two potential starting quarterbacks. Senior Derek Sheaffer returns after starting last season. Junior Blake Reed started for the junior varsity team in 2015 and was battling to earn the varsity spot this year.

The passing game was a focus in the offseason. After a few seasons where pounding the ball always seemed to become the team’s best option, the goal this year is diversify the offense.

“We’re going to strive to be balanced,” said Fairclough. “We can’t be a heavy run oriented team. We’ve worked a lot in the offseason on our passing game. We went to Penn State for passing scrimmages. We went to Souderton, the whole circuit so to speak. It gave us some confidence. It gave our quarterbacks and receivers some confidence.

“It showed in our scrimmage. We caught a couple difficult balls and made some plays to start drives and made some plays on third down in the passing game.”

While the offense and the loss of Boney will get attention early in the season, it might be the team’s defense that carries it through the early part of the season.

“Defense is going to be our strong point,” said Fairclough. “We have a lot more returning starters on that side of the ball.”

Junior Noah Breidinger returns after missing most of last season with a broken collar bone. He’ll anchor the defense at middle linebacker. Ben Maher also returns at linebacker. Carraher, Nimas, Reeves and Joey Barno will share duties on the front line of the Hornets 3-4 scheme.

Myers and senior Aaron Figueroa will play corner and a few different safeties will rotate for the team, including senior Ryan Fritz.

Maher, a junior, is the leading returning tackler with 44 last season to go along with two forced fumbles and two interceptions.

Carraher made 38 tackles in 2015, including 13 for loss and two sacks. Nimas had 25 tackles last season and Fritz had 23.

Emmaus also returns the league’s best kicker in senior Carson Landis, who consistently booms kicks off to the end zone and has been an accurate place kicker for the past two seasons.

Fairclough was pleased with the turnout for offseason workouts this year and feels that his team is learning how to practice like a champion and heading in the right direction.

“We’re just going to look to compete every week and be in every game in the fourth quarter to give ourselves a chance to win,” he said. “We want to do that along with preparing to the best of our ability every day. Those are the goals, just get a little bit better every day.”