Emmaus picked up its second postseason win over Nazareth on Sunday, beating the Blue Eagles 3-1 in the District 11 Class 6A semifinals played at De Sales University. The win puts the Hornets on track to win the District 11 championship, which will be played Wednesday back at De Sales.

While the first win over Nazareth gave Emmaus the East Penn Conference championship, Sunday’s win not only moves the Hornets to the district finals but gives them an automatic spot in the PIAA tournament that begins next week.

Nazareth starter Jake Dally and Emmaus starter Luke Deschenes engaged in a pitcher’s duel for most of the game Sunday. Through five innings, the only runs of the game came across the plate in the fourth inning when Josiah Williams hit into a fielder’s choice with runners on first and third, bringing home Zach McEllroy, who had led off the inning with a single.

Nazareth threatened in the top of the sixth after Gavin Panovec led off with a single, was sacrificed to second and moved to third on a groundout. Deschenes stranded him at third when he got a fly ball to center off the bat of Preston Warne to end the inning.

As well as Deschenes was pitching, a couple insurance runs would have been huge for the Hornets and they set out to get them in the bottom of the inning. Dally still looked strong and got the first two outs of the inning before giving up a walk to pinch-hitter Jackson Merk, who then was pinch-run for by William Fleck. Colin Foley followed with a bloop single to center to put runners on first and third with two outs.

That put Emmaus into a position that they had practiced for all season. With left-hander Jacoby Sauer coming on in relief for Nazareth, Fleck on third and pinch-runner Cohen Schadler on first, the stars were aligned for the Hornets to pull a little trickery out of their pocket.

“The play is set up for just this situation,” said Fleck. “With a lefty on the mound, they’re looking at first and the runner there is supposed to trip and fall and when the pitcher goes that way, the runner on third heads for home. At first, I was a little nervous about whether it would work or not, but it worked perfectly. We practice that a lot but it’s different in a game situation.”

The play worked flawlessly and put Emmaus up 2-0 with Schadler on second after he stole a base on the throw home. After Noah Hogan worked a walk, Tyler LePage gave the Hornets a little more insurance with a ground ball through the middle, bringing home Schadler from second for a three-run cushion.

In addition to LePage helping on offense with two hits and an RBI, he made a big defensive play to end the fifth inning, preventing extra bases off the bat of Aaron Leopold. For the senior third baseman, that may have been the highlight of the game.

“I love defense as much as I love hitting,” said LePage with a broad smile. “I definitely love fielding the ball and I have worked on that over these past three years.”

Nazareth looked to make it interesting in the top of the seventh when Dally led off with a double down the third-base line and went to third when Zach Smethers followed with a single to center. Deschenes traded a double play for a run by getting a ground ball up the middle that shortstop Anthony Viola fielded, stepped on second and gunned to first. Dally crossed home on the play, but Deschenes easily got the final out of the game to wrap up the win and get his first complete game of the season, finishing with 99 pitches.

“It was the first time this year I was able to make it a full seven and I definitely felt good,” said the senior pitcher. “I felt my command was there all game long and probably was the best it has been all season, so I felt comfortable attacking the hitters.”

Liberty downed Parkland earlier in the day on Sunday to set up the championship game. Last season, Liberty lost to Parkland in the semis and Emmaus went on to defeat the Trojans for the district championship.

“I think it is going to be another game like this (the game against Nazareth),” said LePage. “We expect a dogfight back and forth and I am super excited for the game. We thought all along we could get to this point, but you always have to just take it a game at a time, and we have to focus on Liberty now and then after that, it becomes all about playing in states to see how far we can go there.”