Over the past three seasons, the opening round game of the District XI playoffs have been simply cruel to the Emmaus boys lacrosse team.
A year ago, as the No. 1 seed, the Hornets had their season ended in overtime by rival Parkland 10-9 in the semifinals.
Back in 2023 and 2022, the same result, a pair of one-goal losses as Emmaus fell to Easton 12-11 and Freedom 10-9, respectively.
It couldn’t happen again, right?
It did.
With a long 14-day layoff since its last game, the Hornets were hoping to reverse their misfortunes from the past and keep their season alive as they traveled to Nazareth last night in their quarterfinal round matchup featuring the No. 4 vs No. 5 seed.
Having already lost once to the Blue Eagles this season, head coach Justin Fuhrman’s was looking for a better performance this time around then the one back on April 8 which resulted in a 11-goal loss.
Emmaus’ second year coach did indeed see a much better effort from his young squad as the two teams traded leads all night long.
The result, however, didn’t change as Emmaus once again suffered heartbreak, meaning another difficult end to their season.
With the game tied in the waning seconds of regulation and overtime almost a certainty, Nazareth had other ideas as the Blue Eagles took advantage of a man-up opportunity to score the game-winning goal as time expired as sophomore Aidan Reilly found the back of the net giving the home squad an 11-10 win.
The victory was the second for Nazareth over Emmaus this season and the first in four years in the post-season for the Blue Eagles, who advance to the semifinals on May 20 to face the top seed and defending champs Easton.
For Emmaus, meanwhile, their season ends one game under .500 (9-10).
“I’m proud of the boys for rebounding from a 14-3 loss to Nazareth in the first meeting,” said Fuhrman later following the game. “Proud of them for the whole season. Youth and injuries made it an uphill battle for us, and we had some guys really step up when asked.”
“The future is right there for us to take next year if we commit to getting better this offseason.”
One of those guys who won’t be a part of the future but did step up was senior midfielder Kaleb Mains who closed out an outstanding high school career with five goals, including the 100th of his career to give Emmaus an early 1-0 lead less than four minutes into the game.
Sophomore middie Anthony Attar and freshman attack Alex Younker each added two goals in the loss, while freshman attack Dylan Maloney also found the back of the net. Between the pipes, senior Jack Sullivan played a solid game making eight saves.
Nazareth (13-7) had a balanced scoring attack with six different players scoring goals. Sophomore Kellan Tomko led the Blue Eagles with a hat trick, while another sophomore, Owen Hanzl, had a five-point game with two goals and three assists. Junior Ryan Kane and Reilly each scored two goals. Sophomore goalie Nate Orlando made 13 stops.
Last night’s game marked the final one in the high school careers of Emmaus’ 14 seniors: Jewlien Torres, Finn Neyhart, Ben Anders, Kaleb Mains, Alex Collins, Ty Carter, Reno Guastella, Rylee Fehr, Gabe Chies, Lewes Sarver, Reilly Bechtel, James Schauer, Max Lipski and Jack Sullivan
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Nazareth 11, Emmaus 10
Em – 2-2-4-2 – 10
Naz – 2-3-2-4 – 11
Scoring:
Em – Kaleb Mains 5g, Anthony Attar 2g, Alex Younker 2g, Dylan Maloney 1g, Jack Sullivan 8 saves
Naz – Kellan Tomko 3g, Owen Hanzl 2g/3a, Ryan Kane 2g/1a, Aidan Reilly 2g, Blake Smith 1g/1a, Connor Mulada 1g/2a, Anthony DiFrancesco 2a, Nate Orlando 13 saves