Maddi Woodward had a short separation from her teammates on the Emmaus girls’ soccer team when her family moved to Texas for a six-month period. It was difficult for Woodward, her teammates and Hornet head coach Sarah Oswald. The good news is that her family moved back to Emmaus, and she was able to reunite, which brought Oswald to tears.

“I was literally crying when she told me they were moving back,” Oswald admitted. “She is such a great person and I missed having her personality on the team and of course, missed her skills on the field.”

Woodward celebrated her return to the team with a goal and an assist in Emmaus’ East Penn Conference opener against Northampton last week, downing the Konkrete Kids 3-0.

Woodward started the scoring just over one minute into the game with her first goal of the season.

“I’m really excited to be back,” said Woodward. “I’m proud of everyone because we bounced back today, and we all played really well. We really needed the early goals. We said before we went out there that we needed to score that first goal and then go from there.”

Before the first half had even reached the midway point, Emmaus had a second goal when Paige Inman fed senior Kam Watkins with a near-perfect pass and Watkins picked up her first goal of the season to put the Hornets up 2-0. Moments later, Sam Walkiewicz headed a shot toward the goal that was stopped, but nearly got into the net for a third Emmaus goal.

Emmaus continued to apply pressure and found another goal less than a minute later. This time, it was Woodward passing off to Kamryn McWhinney, who added a third goal for Emmaus.

“We’ve talked about being able to set the tone for the game and put the other team on their back foot,” said Oswald. “We needed to get one early but to get one in the first minute and a half was perfect. That momentum just pushed us and now we just have to keep working on keeping that same energy throughout the 80 minutes.”

Northampton never got consistent pressure on Emmaus goalie Molly Lineberger. The defense in front of Lineberger played well for the Lady Hornets, stepping into passing lanes and working to get to balls ahead of Northampton players.

In four games this season, Emmaus has allowed just three goals and had two shutouts in a row. Offensively, a key for Emmaus was a crisp passing game that proved too much for Northampton.

“We work on passing just about every day, just possessing and playing out of the back and getting the ball forward,” said Woodward. “I think that’s going to be a key for us.”

Since beating Northampton, Emmaus (3-0 EPC, 3-1 overall) went on to pick up EPC wins over Whitehall and Bethlehem Catholic. In the most recent win over Bethlehem Catholic, Emmaus got two goals each from McWhinney, Watkins and Sophia Candy, while Inman and Woodward notched single goals in an 8-1 win. Watkins, Woodward, and Casey Bender each had two assists in the game.

The Lady Hornets play at East Stroudsburg North on Friday before a nonconference home game against Methacton on Saturday. They then return to EPC play at home against Pocono Mountain East next Tuesday.