Following a statement victory on the road at Parkland on Jan. 13, the Emmaus High School boys basketball team went on a run of three consecutive games with wins. But that ended in an abrupt way as the Green Hornets were blitzed by defending PIAA Class 4A state champion Allentown Central Catholic 55-26 last Friday night at Emmaus High School in a matchup of the top two teams in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference West Division.

It was a season-low in points for the Hornets (14-3 overall, 8-3 EPC), who converted only eight field goals all game, five of which came from three-point land. The Vikings’ defense made it difficult on the Emmaus offense all game.

“They really played with a lot of intensity on the defensive end,” said Emmaus head coach Steve Yoder. “They made it tough on us all night. We just didn’t have an answer offensively and couldn’t get anything going really. We will need to learn from this and then move on.”

Sophomore Will Barber’s three-pointer gave Emmaus a 3-2 lead before the Vikings went on a 7-0 spurt with all the points coming on fast breaks. The Green Hornets closed it to 11-6 on senior Jadis Brevitt’s acrobatic, spinning layup with 2:20 left in the opening quarter.

Over the next seven-plus minutes, Central allowed only a Brydon Crawford 3-pointer while building a 28-9 lead that was never threatened the rest of the way.

“Our perimeter players had a difficult time getting open and creating opportunities to score,” Yoder said. “They really focused on those guys on our end, and we didn’t make the proper adjustments to combat that.”

Brevitt led the Green Hornets with 13 points, including a trio of three-pointers, but rarely found an open lane to the basket. Barber tallied six points. That was the majority of the total for Emmaus offensively.

Before the game, Yoder and his program honored its six seniors: Ben Kieres, Ryan Santos, Crawford, Ryan Diehl, Jaden Gallagher and Brevitt.

Emmaus bounced back the next day in defeating Upper Perkiomen 70-39 in a nonconference game on the road. The Hornets have two conference road games this week in Northampton and Whitehall.