The Lady Hornets jumped to an early lead against Parkland but were unable to hold off a late rally that pushed the Trojans to a 52-39 win in their recent East Penn Conference matchup.

Senior Sarah Hoch led Emmaus with 15 points, while Grace Oglesbee finished with 10 for Emmaus. Parkland’s Zoe Wilkinson had a game-high 17 points.

A big part of the reason for success early in the game came from a definitive edge in rebounding by Emmaus, even though the Hornets were outsized. Paige Inman and Hoch each finished with six rebounds in the game.

“Rebounding is one of the things that we focus on in practice and how we can keep other teams, especially teams that are bigger than us, off the glass,” said coach Kelsey Gallagher. “We just cannot afford to give teams second chances on offense, so that and our overall defense are things we harp on every day at practice.”

Emmaus (9-4 overall, 7-2 EPC) went on an early 9-0 run to take an 11-3 lead and stretched their advantage to as many as 11 points by the midway point of the second quarter.

From there, Parkland (8-4, 5-3) began to chip away at the lead and scored the last six points of the first half to make it a 28-25 game.

Coming out of the locker room, the Hornets swung the momentum back to their side of the court and rebuilt their lead to nine points at 38-29 by late in the third quarter.

From there the Parkland defense picked up in intensity and held Emmaus to just one more point over the game’s final 11 minutes. Meanwhile, the Lady Trojans hit on every shot and left the gym with a win over their division rivals.

“Our girls always fight and play hard,” said Gallagher. “They fought off that first rally and pushed back, but that fourth quarter just was not our quarter, and we ran out of gas a little bit. Plus, Parkland hit some good shots and made some big drives with their big girls (Wilkinson and Madi Siggins) down low. That is something that we will have to work harder on, and we will be ready for that when we play them again in a couple of weeks.”

Two nights later, Emmaus came right back and beat Pleasant Valley (6-4, 5-4) by a score of 51-31 with Watkins scoring 16 points and Inman contributing 13 in the win.

Inman (8.15 points per game) and Watkins (7.31 PPG) are the team’s leading scorers with Mya Cooper (6.92) and Sarah Hoch (6.54) close behind.

Emmaus enters a difficult stretch of the schedule with games against Easton (11-0, 7-0), Central Catholic (10-2, 7-1) and Northampton (11-2, 7-1) on the way, in addition to a nonconference game against Blue Mountain (10-3, 5-2 Schuylkill League).

The rematch with Parkland comes up on the schedule on February 4.

Emmaus needs just two more wins over its finals nine games to lock up a spot in the District 11 postseason tournament.