Like a lot of Eastern Pennsylvania Conference teams, it had been a long time since Emmaus beat the four-time District 11 champ Parkland boys basketball team. The Hornets’ last win against Parkland came back on January 15 of 2013, before anyone on the current Emmaus team had yet reached high school.

But that changed last week when the two teams met up for the first time this winter season.

Emmaus (5-0) remained unbeaten with a 56-51 win over Parkland last Tuesday. Besides a brief moment in the second period when the Trojans held a one-point lead, Emmaus led the entire way and handed the Trojans a loss at their own gym.

“There haven’t been many teams the last few years that have been able to come onto this floor and win, and we were able to do that,” Emmaus head coach Steve Yoder said.

Following an 11-0 Parkland spurt that gave the Trojans their only lead at 20-19 midway through the second quarter, Emmaus responded to take a lead it wouldn’t relinquish. The Hornets went on a 10-5 run to end the half, capped by two late David Kachelries 3-pointers that gave Emmaus a 29-25 advantage.

“This is a tough place to play,” Yoder said. “I taught here. I coached here. It’s tough to shoot here. They’ve established a significant home court advantage. It’s tough to win here. The game kind of went how I expected.”

The Hornets grew their lead to double figures on two occasions in the third period, the latest at 39-29 when Daryn Lewis set up Josh Artis for a field goal. Then, that lead grew to 14 points in the fourth before Parkland mustered a late run, but Matt Kachelries (13-for-14 from the foul line) and Emmaus hit their free throws down the stretch to put to rest any thoughts of a comeback.

Matt Kachelries, who scored a team-high 19 points, made seven of his eight free throws in the fourth quarter. As a team, Emmaus went 12-for-16 in the final frame.

“We just had to come in and play with a lot of energy and try to win this game,” Kachelries said. “We had to play defense.

“We just wanted to get up in them and play a lot of defense. That was our key to the game, to slow them down, slow the shooters, slow Sam [Iorio] down, the engine of their team basically.”

Parkland scored just eight points in the opening quarter, and Emmaus’ defense held the Trojans to under 10 in the third as well. Iorio led the Trojans with 18 points, but hit just one field goal through the first 24 minutes.

“I thought defensively, we held them in the 40s, and we feel like offensively we can score the ball,” Yoder said. “And that tempo is fine with us. And our free throw shooting-Matt [Kachelries] was 13-for-14 from the foul line-so those are the two things that stick our right now.”

David Kachelries scored 15 points for Emmaus, and Zach Sabol pitched in with 11 to land in double figures.

The Hornets then added a win over Central Catholic prior to this week’s Allen Holiday Tournament, which includes the Canaries, Springfield-Delco and Wilkes-Barre GAR. Results from their game against Springfield-Delco on Tuesday were not available at time of press. The two winners will match up on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m.

Parkland went on to drop it’s fourth game of the year, falling to Whitehall late last week. The Trojans head into their holiday tournament at 2-4 overall and 1-3 in the EPC with a league game against Liberty scheduled as their tournament opener Tuesday.