Many teams face a tipping point in the season. For professional teams it can come down to one road trip or homestand. For high school teams, especially when they’re faced with a shortened season, it can come down to one game. For the Emmaus girls basketball team, the season may have come down to one 10-minute span when it wasn’t even on the court: halftime. That turning point resulted in a 28-21 win over Whitehall to move to 4-2 on the season.

After opening with three wins, the Hornets lost games to Allen and Central Catholic to fall to 3-2. They traveled to Whitehall High School Saturday for a game against the 0-2 Lady Zephyrs.

Throughout the first half, the two teams battled one another but Emmaus never could grab a lead. The Hornets did tie the game midway through the second quarter, but never took the lead and trailed 10-6 at halftime.

That’s when head coach Kelsey Gallagher tested her players and threw out the game plan they came into the game with, in favor of one they had run through in just one practice. Not having spent much time to learn the plan, there was a risk that it would go very wrong for the Lady Hornets. However, Gallagher thought it was the right thing to do and she put the plan into motion.

“Our word of the year so far has been focused. We’ve got to come in and be focused on what we’re doing right. What does Emmaus need to do offensively? What does Emmaus need to do defensively?” said Gallagher. “I’m so proud of how we played today. We grew as a team today and I’m proud of them. We’ve been throwing different things at them when we can and to be able to come out and put those things into practice midgame like we did today shows a lot of maturity.”

Emmaus took its first lead when Kameron Watkins hit on a three-pointer with 5:38 left in the third quarter. The Hornets fell behind late in the third quarter by one but came right back and grabbed a 22-21 lead when Gabrielle Martin hit a pair of free throws with just over one-minute left in the third quarter.

Gallagher’s defense first style really took hold in the third quarter when the Lady Zephyrs were unable to put anything on the board and Emmaus worked their way to the 28-21 win.

“We always stress defense and I thought we played really well defensively today and were able to do the things that we stress doing on defense,” said Gallagher, who has her team within one win of qualifying for districts.

“This one was really big for us,” said team co-captain Stephanie Klemick. “We keep going and we keep our heads up. Even after we had a couple of losses, we just kept going and came in here today expecting to win. If we stay positive and keep playing our game, we’re going to be OK, and we showed that today.”

Against Whitehall, Watkins finished with eight points and Martin added seven. On the season, Watkins’ average of eight points per game is leading the way, just ahead of Klemick, who is averaging seven points per game.

Emmaus hasn’t qualified for districts since the 2013-14 season and is on the cusp of doing so this season. The Hornets have another game against Whitehall (0-3 EPC, 0-3 overall) and then have tougher games against undefeated Parkland (6-0, 6-0) later this week and a rematch with Central Catholic (3-1, 4-2), who beat Emmaus last week in their first meeting of the season.