The Emmaus High School baseball team was off to a fast start in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, winning its first four games in conference play. Last week the Hornets suffered their first league setback and finished the week 1-2.

Emmaus defeated Freedom 6-2 on Monday, April 3, but followed that with a 13-4 loss to Northampton last Wednesday. The Hornets concluded the week by falling to Twin Valley in a nonconference competition, 8-7, on Saturday.

Against the Patriots, Emmaus went down 1-0 after the first inning, but answered with a five-run top of the second inning.

The scoring started with one out when Chad Kauffman, Dayne Schmidt and Cole Moreau hit back-to-back-to-back singles. After the second out of the inning, the Hornets made sure to come away with something as they connected for three straight hits, two run-scoring singles by William Fleck and Noah Hogan and then a two-run double from Zach McEllroy for a 5-1 advantage.

Freedom got one back in the third, but once again Emmaus answered in its next at-bat as Hogan singled home Fleck. That duo led the bats with two hits each with Hogan adding two RBIs and Fleck scoring two runs. McEllroy also had two RBIs. Moreau earned the win on the bump, throwing 4.2 innings and striking out nine.

The Hornets saw Northampton score six runs in the bottom of the first and then, just as they began to make a comeback attempt, the Kids added a seven-run sixth inning. Emmaus outhit the Kids 10-5, but the was hurt by four errors in the game and a season-high 14 walks.

Hogan, Schmidt and Moreau all finished with two hits. Fleck, McEllroy, Hogan and Moreau each had an RBI.

Against Twin Valley it was the late innings that doomed Emmaus as the Raiders erased a 7-3 deficit in the top of the seventh by scoring five runs and then getting three outs in the bottom-half of the frame. They opened the game with two runs in the first, but the Hornets tied the game with a two-run double by Kauffman and took the lead as Kauffman touched home on a passed ball.

Twin Valley tied the game at 3-3 in the second before Colin Wilson recorded an RBI single in the bottom of the third for a 4-3 lead. Emmaus scored twice in the fifth and once in the sixth and needed just three outs for the win, but the Raiders hit around in the seventh and brought home five runners to take the game.

Emmaus also dropped a game at Whitehall, 11-9, earlier this week and are currently 5-4 overall and 4-2 in the EPC, fourth in the EPC West Division.