After falling to Northampton (16-3, 12-1), the top team in the East Penn Conference West Division, last Tuesday the Emmaus girls basketball team took the court again Friday night to face one of the hottest teams in the league.
Whitehall (7-11 overall, 7-6 EPC) rolled into town winners of four of its last five games as the Zephyrs make a late push for conference and district playoffs. They prevented Emmaus (10-8, 7-6) from wrapping up their spot in districts and put a damper on the Hornets’ senior night by downing them 43-35.
Junior Paige Inman finished with a game-high 13 points for Emmaus, while Olivia Hines paced Whitehall with 10 points in the game.
After trailing from the start of the game, Emmaus came back twice in the first two quarters to tie the game and with 2:56 left in the first half, took a short-lived two-point lead when Grace Oglesbee sank a basket to put the Lady Hornets up 10-8.
Shortly after that, Hines initiated a streak of seven unanswered points that stretched into the third quarter as Whitehall opened what was its largest lead of the game to that point when it went up by five points shortly early in the third quarter.
“During practice we talked about how they would be playing hard and looking for revenge because we beat them on their court earlier in the season,” said coach Kelsey Gallagher. “They certainly played as hard as we expected, and they are on a roll that we couldn’t stop.”
Senior Sarah Hoch hit a three-pointer with 6:48 left in the third quarter and Oglesbee, also a senior, followed up with a drive to the basket to tie the game at 17.
Whitehall continued to slowly build its lead and finished the third quarter leading 32-24. Later, Inman hit back-to-back threes to bring Emmaus within one and Mya Cooper put Emmaus up 35-34 with 4:18 left to play when she hit a little jumper.
From there, it was all Whitehall as the Zephyrs scored the final nine points of the game, doing most of the damage with foul shots. Ella Laky hit four of five freebies down the stretch and Bella Fonzone added another foul shot to wrap up the win for the Lady Zephyrs.
Overall, Whitehall went 7-for-11 (64-percent) from the line, while the Emmaus foul shooters continued to struggle from the line, going 4-for-13 (31-percent). On the season, Emmaus is shooting just 48-percent (146-for-304) from the line.
The Lady Hornets turned the ball over on eight of their first 10 trips down the court and allowed Whitehall to pull down six offensive rebounds, which led to 10 points on follow-up shots.
“We got off to a slow start and that didn’t help us,” said Gallagher. “We were still only down by three at halftime, but Whitehall came out strong. They wanted redemption and they played a nice game and knocked down shots when they needed to and most importantly, knocked down foul shots at the end of the game.”
Gallagher was quick to salute the seniors – Alyssa Brader, Callie Cook, Hoch, Oglesbee and Kam Watkins - for their contributions and the changes that they have brought to the program.
“This senior group has been so great and has done an excellent job of making sure that everybody felt included from our freshman team all the way to our varsity players, and I think we have missed that the past few seasons,” said Gallagher. “Grace, Sarah and Kam have been starters all year and they come out and play hard and Alyssa comes in and gives us positive minutes defensively and Callie is good for some points off the bench and sometimes, we need that spark.”
Emmaus needs to win one of its final four games to qualify for districts, but the EPC playoff picture is a little murkier.
Af of Monday evening, Emmaus was tied with Whitehall for the eighth and final EPC tournament spot, but East Stroudsburg South (6-5), Freedom (6-6), Whitehall (6-6) and Pleasant Valley (6-7) are all within striking distance.
The Lady Hornets could also catch Nazareth and Parkland, who are both 7-5 in the EPC, to move up in the conference standings. Emmaus beat both East Stroudsburg South and Pleasant Valley in league play to hold the tiebreaker over them in the standings. The Lady Hornets defeated Freedom in the season opener, but it was played as a non-conference game, and they have split their two meetings with Whitehall.
The Hornets’ schedule still has games at Allen (0-19, 0-14), Pocono Mountain East (5-10, 4-8) and Parkland (10-7, 7-5) before the team wraps up the regular season at home against Allentown Central Catholic (14-4, 9-3) on February 7.