Abby Burnett has played in plenty of championship games throughout her high school career. She’s also won many titles along the way. The senior credits her head coach, Sue Butz-Stavin, for the program’s success and also the growth of the players.

Burnett, who was named the EPC MVP recently, scored two goals and added an assist and Butz-Stavin led Emmaus to another Eastern Pennsylvania Conference title, defeating Nazareth 7-0 last Thursday night at Whitehall High School.

“It’s really important a good team is coachable, and we have one of the best coaches in the country in Sue Butz-Stavin,” said Burnett. “So, it’s easy to be coached by her, but it’s that every individual is able to listen to feedback and follow through with it.”

Burnett scored the game’s first and third goal to help take the Green Hornets out to an early lead and to their seventh straight conference title. It’s just another championship for Burnett, who, along with her upperclassmen teammates, are used to wearing gold.

“When you enter the program as a freshman you know your place,” Burnett said. “And as you go through the program you get used to being coached by them, used to the upperclassmen, used to the culture of Emmaus field hockey and then you get to be a big part of it.”

Burnett is a senior captain, along with Rachel Herbine and Ava Zerfass, and they have helped guide Emmaus to a 21-0 record so far. It wasn’t all easy with blowout games, however, the Green Hornets had some challenging games along the way at the end of the regular season.

“Our mindset has changed a bit,” said Burnett. “We’re working hard at practice and improving our intensity at practice, which is transferring over into our game play and really has been essential to our improved scores over the past few weeks. We’re getting our winning mindset back. Against Gwynedd Mercy, we didn’t play our best hockey, we were kind of lackadaisical, we didn’t move off the ball really well. After that game we took a moment to realize what our weaknesses were. We changed them and now our off-ball movement and passing have really improved.”

After a scoreless opening 12 minutes of play, Burnett broke the deadlock and that was followed up by Melea Weber’s late quarter goal. Emmaus broke the game open in the second quarter. The Hornets scored twice in the opening 4:23 and twice more in the final 7:58 to head into the break with a secure 6-0 lead.

Zerfass finished with two goals, and Herbine and Emmy Horner added one each. Goalie Emma Cari had three saves.

Emmaus will now open the District 11 playoffs as the top seed and will have a bye to the semifinals. The Hornets will face either fourth seed Parkland or fifth seed Stroudsburg next Tuesday night at Whitehall.