The Emmaus High School baseball team has hit a rough patch in their 2023 regular season schedule. After winning five of their first six games to open up the season, the Hornets lost four of their last five games and two of three league contests last week.

Last Monday, April 11, Emmaus lost a late lead and fell to Whitehall 11-9. The next day the Hornets took care of business by beating Pocono Mountain West 11-8.

Emmaus then met rival Parkland for the first time in 2023 as the teams played last Thursday at Coca Cola Park with the Trojans coming out as 11-5 winners.

The Zephyrs went up early with a big, four-run, bottom of the first inning. The Hornets scored eight runs combined in the third and fourth innings, including a seven-run top of the fourth to go on top 8-5. But Whitehall answered with six in the fifth to rally late.

William Fleck and Zach McEllroy each had two hits and two RBIs for Emmaus, which had an 8-6 advantage in hits. Emmit Budick recorded a hit and a team-high three RBIs.

It was a wild game against the Panthers as the Hornets found themselves down 8-1 with their final at-bats in the bottom of the seventh. They rallied for 10 runs, including a three-run, walk-off home run by McEllroy. The two teams traded a run in the first and PMW added a run in the fourth before a six-run seventh that seemed to put the game away.

Noah Hogan led Emmaus with three hits and had four RBIs and scored two runs. Cole Moreau, Jackson Merk and Cohen Schadler all had an RBI in the win.

Taylor Davis earned the victory on the mound and was the final of three different pitchers in the game.

Hogan’s bat remained hot in Coca-Cola Park Thursday as he blasted a solo home run over the right-field fence to get his team within a run at 2-1 in the second inning.

Emmaus scored three runs on nifty baserunning plays in the game. With runners at the corners, Hornet head coach Jeremy Haas called for the runner on first to steal second base. When the Trojans caught that player in a rundown, the runner on third base headed home.

The Hornets used the play three times in the game. The first time allowed Will Fleck to score the tying run in the third inning.

Emmett Budick’s double scored Cole Moreau to put the Hornets in front 3-2 in the fourth inning. After a Cohen Sschadler single, another rundown play allowed Budick to come home for a two-run Emmaus lead.

The Trojans (10-2 overall, 8-2 East Penn Conference) put up a run in the fifth inning before another rundown play in the bottom of the inning scored Zach McElroy for a 5-3 Hornet lead.

That lead held up until the seventh inning when Parkland used seven hits, one error and an intentional walk to take an 11-5 lead that it would maintain through the bottom of the inning for the win.

“Just a snowball,” said Haas. “One bad thing happens and you get bad thoughts in your mind and if you’re not mentally strong they’re going to eat away at you. It’s one error led to another mistake, a bad pitch and we start hanging our heads. We just have to find a way to be mentally stronger and work through adversity.”

McEllroy, Budick and Schadler all finished with two hits in the game.

Emmaus is 6-5 overall and 4-3 in the EPC. The Hornets were at Pleasant Valley Monday, home against Easton on Wednesday and then travel to Central Catholic on Friday.

“We have a really critical stretch coming up,” said Haas. “That will really dictate the way the rest of our season is going to go. We can’t feel bad for ourselves. We have to have a good practice tomorrow and get back to work.

“Until we start playing a clean 21 [outs], we can play down with any team in the area or the state, and we can play up with any team. Until we start playing defense the way championship teams do, we are going to have our struggles.”