In an abbreviated season last year, the Emmaus girls basketball team finished 5-8 and made its first appearance in districts under head coach Kelsey Gallagher, who enters her fifth season as the team’s coach.

The Hornets went into districts not just happy to get there but looking to go deeper into the tournament and surprise some teams along the way. They opened with a first-round win over Pleasant Valley before running into top-seed Nazareth, who ended the Hornets season with a 47-24 loss in the quarterfinals.

The hope is that last season was a steppingstone on the way to success and there is good reason for optimism. Kam Watkins used her junior season to become a breakout player for Emmaus and led the team in scoring with eight points per game. She returns for her senior season looking to lead Emmaus deeper into districts than the team went last season.

“Kam really became a leader for us last season and I think that she is comfortable in that role now with having last season under her belt,” said Gallagher. “We’re fortunate to have her back along with other experienced girls who give us some balance to go with a good crop of younger players on the roster.”

There are six senior players on the Emmaus roster for this season, including Alyssa Brader, Callie Cook, Sarah Hoch, Grace Oglesbee, Ella Quiggle and Watkins. After that, Paige Inman is the only junior and the remainder of the roster is made up of sophomores and freshmen.

“We have a very young team, so having the leadership with our seniors and with Paige is going to be very important for us,” Gallagher said. “The younger girls are very talented, and we’ll look to get a number of them involved quickly and find out what they can do for us at the varsity level.”

Of course, competition in the East Penn Conference is always tough and the West Division alone is going to be difficult for teams to maneuver through.

Central Catholic (16-4) won the Class 4A district title last season and Parkland (15-3) lost to Nazareth in the 6A finals. Northampton (8-7) has four returning starters from last year’s team. Plus, the EPC features the 5A district champion Bethlehem Catholic Golden Hawks (9-8) and 6A champion Nazareth (17-2), but Emmaus does not face either of them on its regular season schedule.

The schedule opens with two nonconference home games against Liberty on Friday and Wilson West Lawn on Saturday. The first conference game is Tuesday, also at home, against Allen.

“We have to just go into the season ready to play and focusing on what we need to do as a team to win games,” said Gallagher. “There are so many really good teams in this league that you don’t really get a break and we have some difficult nonleague games on the schedule, too. Hopefully, we can build some confidence early and use that when we get into the really difficult part of the schedule where we’re facing Parkland and Central Catholic and all of those teams that are always tough.”