Throughout the regular-season, the Emmaus girls softball team never lost a game at home.
Heading into their District XI 6A quarterfinal round matchup against Northampton, the Hornets were a perfect 10-0 at the friendly confines of Williams Street Field.
Unfortunately, that streak came to an end so did the season, far too early then head coach Rich Giering’s team expected.
After having started and played an inning on Friday then rain postponing the game to 10 a.m. on Saturday, both teams had the early wake up call to resume action due and finish what they started due to Northampton having their prom later in the day.
And it would be the K-Kids who would smiling heading to their big night as they stunned Emmaus 4-2 in eight innings, handing the Hornets their first loss at home while also holding the home squad to its lowest offensive output of the season.
Northampton third baseman Ro Echevarria wound up being the hero for the winners as she delievered a one out, two-run RBI single in the top of the eighth breaking a 2-2 tie and sending the K-Kids to the semifinal round on Tuesday at Pates Park at 7 p.m. against EPC champ Nazareth, who survived Whitehall 6-5 in their quarterfinal round game.
The other half of the bracket also resulted in surprises with No. 8 seed Easton upsetting top-seeded Freedom 2-1 and No. 5 Stroudsburg winning at No. 4 Liberty, 5-3.
For Emmaus, which hasn’t won a district title since 2007, it was tough ending to the season as they dropped their final two games after losing to Nazareth 10-3 in the EPC Semis on May 12. The Hornets finished with an 18-5 overall mark for the second consecutive year.
The loss also marked the second time in the last three years that the K-Kids have ended Emmaus’ season in districts.
The K-Kids jumped on the scoreboard first with a run in the third inning, however, Emmaus was able to tie the game at 1-1 in the fourth on pitcher Mari Eiswerth’s one out sacrifice fly. Northampton then went back on top 2-1 in the sixth on Echevarria’s RBI groundout before Emmaus once again responded, tying the game on junior first baseman Abby Derr’s RBI double scoring Taylor Hauver who led off the inning with a single and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt.
Northampton would then wound up scoring the go-ahead run in the extra frame before pitcher Rylee Gable was able to get Avery DeFanti to fly out to right to end the game, stranding senior Sadie Haefeli at second base who kept the inning alive with a two-out double.
In defeat, Derr went 2-for-3 at the plate while Haefeli also had a multiple hit game going for 2-2.
Eiswerth went the distance in the circle for the Hornets and suffered the loss dropping her record to 15-5 on the season. The sophomore right-hander gave up four runs – two earned – on seven hits while striking out a career-high 14.
Yesterday’s game marked the final one in the high school career of Emmaus’ five seniors — Sadie Haefeli, Avery DeFanti, Avery Shank, Sophia Tranguch and Amanda King,
Northampton 4, Emmaus 2
No – 001 001 02 – 4-7-1
Em – 000 101 00 – 2-5-1
No – Rylee Gable and Hannah Duerr; Em – Mari Eiswerth and Morgan Schwab. 2B – Em (Haefeli, Derr).