The Whitehall football team dropped its third game of the season 49-21 to the visiting Emmaus Green Hornets on Friday night.

The Zephyr defense continued to struggle, allowing their opponents to breach the 40-point barrier for the third time.

Things got off to a bad start when Emmaus QB Jake Moyer hit Jameel Sanders on a slant on the Hornet’s first play of the game and Sanders took it 48 yards to the house.

Emmaus had built a 14-0 lead before Ali Barkley bulled over the left side for a 2-yard TD on 4th-and-goal early in the second quarter. The drive was keyed by a 33-yard run by Quinn Wentling out of the wildcat formation that brought the ball down to the Hornet 10.

Emmaus responded with a TD drive of its own. Then when a high snap led to a short Whitehall punt, the Hornets needed only three plays to navigate the 23 yards to the end zone to make it 28-7.

Barkley got the home fans on their feet when he took first play from scrimmage on the next Zephyr drive 83 yards to pay dirt. The run showcased his speed as he burst up the middle, broke to the right sideline, and accelerated away from the defenders.

Unfortunately, Barkley’s counterpart on the Emmaus side, Brandon Camire, broke off TD runs of 68 and 60 yards on the next two Hornet possessions to stake the visitors to a 42-14 halftime lead.

Angelo Daddona added the final TD for Whitehall before Emmaus assumed the victory formation and ran out the clock.

Barkley amassed 173 yards on 25 carries. The passing game generated 38 yards on a 5-14 completion rate.

Emmaus had 301 yards rushing and 115 through the air.

Head coach Matt Senneca focused on staying positive in his postgame comments.

“We just gotta do a better job of doing our jobs and doing what we’re coached to do so that the things we work on during the week translate to Friday night. We’re having a little issue with that right now, but everything we want to do this season is still in front of us. I know we dug ourselves a hole, but we can still fight back from this.”

On Friday, Whitehall will travel to J. Birney Crum stadium to take on Allentown Central Catholic. The Zephyrs secured their lone EPC South win last season by hanging 75 points on the Vikings on the way to winning by 40 points.

Central has had an uneven season, opening with a 21-7 win over 2018 EPC North champion Stroudsburg and a competitive 14-8 loss to Parkland in week two. They followed these good performances by getting waxed by Nazareth 49-7 last week. Given the strength of the EPC South, this might be the only good chance for the Whitehall to pick up a division win.