The East Penn Conference is stacked with good girls soccer teams. The Lady Hornets are among the best teams this season and have used a combination of an offense that utilizes crisp passing to score goals and a defense that not only limits opponent’s shots on goal, but keeps them from getting good looks at the goal.

Emmaus has surrendered just five goals in nine games and has six shutouts on the year, with their latest coming Monday night against Stroudsburg in an 8-0 win. They’ve allowed just one goal to an EPC opponent, which came in an 8-1 win over Bethlehem Catholic. Their only two losses have come to nonconference opponents Wilson West Lawn and Methacton.

Against Stroudsburg (5-4-0 EPC, 5-5-0 overall), Emmaus had 19 shots on goal while the Mounties failed to even come close to getting one shot on goal.

“Right from the start, we focused on defense,” said Emmaus head coach Sarah Oswald. “Paige [Inman] and Mya [Cooper] played club soccer together and they work well together. Before the season I told Casey [Bender] and Ashley [Geder] that I thought they had the potential to be the best wide backs in the league. They have both really stepped up for us.”

Inman moved to defense after playing in various roles with the team last season. Even though she is in a new position, she has some familiarity in playing with Cooper and has taken to the her new role with the team.

“We all communicate really well and have played together a lot and have a lot of confidence in each other,” said Inman. “We know where each other are going to be and how they play and that makes it easier for us to be successful.”

As often happens with Emmaus (7-0-0, 7-2-0), multiple players scored in the win over Stroudsburg.

Senior Kam Watkins had three of the eight goals, while Cooper, Sophia Candy, Kaitlyn Ewing, Sammy Walkiewicz and Maddi Woodward all chipped in on the scoring. With her three goals, Watkins now leads the team in goals with nine, just ahead of freshman Kamryn McWhinney who has seven. Woodward’s first two goals came within a minute of each other to get the scoring started ahead of an acrobatic goal by Woodward that she put into the net using her heel.

Cooper may have had the goal of the night when she put a free kick over the head of goalkeeper Lindsay Pelaez from 35 yards out that put the Lady Hornets up 5-0.

“Our offense has been really well balanced this year with different players stepping up for us,” Oswald said. “We have experienced forwards and they have really come together to give us a consistency that we haven’t had in the past. It’s really exciting to see how we’re playing.”

The assists were spread around as well against Stroudsburg with Woodward assisting on Watkins’ first two goals of the night and Bender, Candy, Geder, Watkins, Jena Luck and Sam Kreiner dishing out passes to teammates for goals.

Most of the remaining schedule is against other strong teams from around the EPC.

Emmaus has two games remaining with both Central Catholic (5-1-2, 6-1-2) and Parkland (6-0-1, 7-1-1) and one game each against Nazareth (6-1-0, 7-2-0) and Northampton (4-4-0, 5-5-0). The only remaining game against a team with a losing record is against Whitehall (3-5-0, 4-6-0).

Emmaus is the only EPC team without a blemish on its record, with Parkland being the only other unbeaten team, but having one tie against Central Catholic.