The Emmaus High School boys volleyball team had one of its more difficult weeks of the 2023 regular season last week. The Green Hornets hosted Freedom in the last home game of the season and senior night last Monday, May 1, and then went on the road in a first-place showdown with then-fellow unbeaten and rival Parkland last Thursday.

Emmaus defeated the Patriots in four sets, by final scores of 25-14, 25-27, 25-22 and 25-17 in a hard-fought match against a team inside the top four in the East Penn Conference.

The Hornets then dropped their first conference match and first match of the season in three sets, falling to the Trojans in a matchup of teams ranked in the top-10 in the state and the top two teams in the EPC, by scores of 13-25, 21-25 and 20-25, at Parkland High School.

Against Freedom, Emmaus came out hot and took care of business in fairly quick fashion, but the Patriots answered in the next set and made the next two tough for the Green Hornets, but they were able to pull them out.

Jametric Harris led the offense with a match-high 18 kills and added three digs and one block. Logan Dougherty tallied 15 kills and Cael Kratzer also finished with double-figures in kills with 11, while also ending with two blocks. Cooper Henseler contributed 44 assists, eight digs and one block. Zach Baus had 15 digs and three assists.

Parkland got a little bit of revenge on Emmaus with its three-set victory Thursday night. The two teams met earlier in the year at the Bobcat Invitational at Northeastern High School and the Hornets came away victories in a three-set match, winning two-of-three, back on April 1.

Emmaus finished the regular season with a 15-1 overall record and 11-1 mark in the conference. The Green Hornets are the two seed in this week’s EPC tournament and will receive a bye to the semifinal round, which takes place on Thursday evening.

Emmaus will be looking to get back and win the conference championship for the first time since the 2021 season. Parkland won it last year.