The Emmaus High School boys basketball team struggled to find a win early in the 2024-25 regular season under first-year head coach Jerald Brown. The Hornets dropped their first five games over the course of the first two weeks before getting in the win column last week.

After falling to Allen 78-52 in an Eastern Pennsylvania Conference game last Tuesday, Dec. 10, the Hornets went on the road and took down East Stroudsburg North 44-40 last Friday night for their first victory of the season.

Against the Canaries, Emmaus led after the opening quarter, 13-12. But Allen outscored Emmaus 18-11 in the second quarter and then 44-28 in the second half.

Senior Owen Hafner finished with 13 points and added seven rebounds, while classmate Matt Deschenes also had a career-best 13-point effort. Senior Mike Rooney contributed eight points and Jack Csensits added five points.

In the win over the Timberwolves, Emmaus jumped out to a fast start, scoring 13 of the game’s first 15 points to lead 13-2 after one quarter. But ESN responded with a strong second quarter and pulled to within just one point at halftime, trailing 24-23.

The Timberwolves took the lead after the third quarter, 33-31, but a 13-7 run in the fourth quarter allowed Emmaus to take back the lead and finish off the first win of the season.

“I’m so proud of the guys,” said Brown. “It took a lot of resiliency to win the game. We’ve had some close games that unfortunately didn’t go our way, but we are battle tested and it showed and I’m so proud of the boys for being able to finish this one out.”

Jake Ross tallied a game-high 13 points to lead the offense. Chase Whitesell finished with 11 points. Rooney contributed eight points.

Emmaus has a busy week before breaking for the holidays. The Hornets have three games this week, including their fourth straight road game at Liberty this past Monday night. Emmaus hosts Dieruff on Thursday and faces Abington Heights in a nonconference game on Saturday afternoon.