It’s generally true that no definitive statements can be drawn on March 20 for a sports season that’s going to stretch into May and have its championships decided around Memorial Day.
But on the first official day of spring, Emmaus softball made a bit of a statement and that statement seemed to be “Hey, don’t get forget about us.”
The Green Hornets, a perennial Eastern Pennsylvania Conference contender that hasn’t won a league title since the EPC was formed a decade ago, served notice they are not to be ignored as they banged out 10 hits, played error-free defense and got clutch pitching from sophomore Mari Eiswerth in a 7-6 victory over visiting Nazareth on Thursday.
After a 15-0 rout over Allentown Central Catholic in the season opener on Monday, the Green Hornets battled the two-time defending EPC champion Blue Eagles in what turned out to be an early season thriller.
Nazareth, coming off a 10-0 rout of Freedom on Wednesday, kept battling back after trailing 3-0, 4-2 and 7-3. The Blue Eagles slugged three home runs, and got a two-run blast from Taylor Friel to cut the deficit to 7-5 in the sixth.
Then, with two out in the seventh, Shauna McNamee homered to trim the deficit to 7-6 and Natalie Chloros and Hailey Mandala followed with singles.
That brought back Friel to the plate. After taking a pitch for a strike, she fouled six pitches before flying out to Avery Shank in left for the final out. Eiswerth kept battling until the ball was in Shank’s glove.
“My team had my back the whole time,” said Eiswerth, who was primarily on the JV team last season. “Sadie [Haefeli, the second baseman] kept talking to me. Everyone had my back. We’re ready. We have a pretty good defense and offense that makes it easy for me to do my job.”
Eiswerth gave up nine hits, including four for extra bases, but walked just two to go along with two strikeouts.
“That’s a very good team,” Emmaus coach Rich Giering said of Nazareth. “We knew they were going to challenge us. We have six new starters this year. It was nice to see that our young kids didn’t get nervous. Mari threw the ball well, and it got a little tight there at the end, but that’s a good thing. We showed we can hang in there and get a good win.”
Emmaus had RBIs from seven different players. Eiswerth had a double and a bases-loaded walk. Sophia Tranguch and Shank had RBI singles in the first inning when the Green Hornets jumped on top 4-0.
Abby Derr homered in the bottom of the fourth to make it 4-2 and in the fifth Sydney Bennett tripled in a run, Taylor Hauver had a bunt single for a run and Haefeli also collected an RBI single.
Hauver set the tone atop the order with two hits and two runs scored.
“We brought the energy and everyone did well,” Hauver said. “Everything came together. I’m just really happy we’re doing so good this year. Everybody worked hard over the winter. It helps a lot with everybody cheering everybody on.”
Nazareth has had a lot to cheer about in recent years and will again this spring. The Blue Eagles got two hits apiece from McNamee, Friel and Chloros, but it wasn’t enough.
“We have a lot of tenacity and we’re going to keep battling,” Nazareth coach Stephen Genzale said. “But there were a couple of plays today that we’d like to have back. Those plays were the difference in the game. But our girls didn’t give up. They put up a couple of crooked numbers on us and we continued to fight back. We were almost there at the end.”
Genzale said that even though he’s got a veteran team with all of the key pieces back from last year’s 20-5 season, there’s still a growth process to go through.
“It’s a matter of seeing how we handle different situations,” he said. “We know we have the talent. It’s the same team we had last year. But there are going to be different obstacles to overcome and we’re trying to figure that out right now. I said to the girls in our team huddle after the game that if you’re going to lose a game like this, let’s lose it early. And then we’ll come back and win it at the end of the year. Taylor really gave us a good at-bat at the end of the game, fouling off tough pitches. Just missed that last pitch.
“We have a lot of positives we can still take from this game and we’re going to use those positives [Friday] against Northwestern Lehigh,” Genzale added.
Emmaus is also in action on Friday, traveling to defending state champion Blue Mountain.
EPC softball
Freedom 3, Parkland 0
Namelia Duro shut out Parkland on two hits, getting five strikeouts and walking none. Daniela sparked the Patriots offense with two hits and two runs. Brooke Rummel scored a run and stole two bases. Allison Hunsberger pitched well for Parkland, allowing just five hits with a walk and two strikeouts. Two of the runs for Freedom (2-1) were unearned. Scerena Reed and Maria Moore had the lone hits for the Trojans (1-1).
Easton 13, Allentown CCHS 1
In a 5-inning game at Patriots Park, Audrey Rinda pitched a no-hitter and had two hits and Kaeda Walsh knocked in three runs as the Red Rovers bounced back from an opening-day loss to Northampton. Faith Zimmerman also had two hits and scored twice for Easton. Gianna Menecola walked and scored the lone run for ACCHS (0-3).
Northampton 18, Dieruff 0
Kiley Henritzy had three hits and knocked in three runs and Claire Lack had three hits and three runs scored as the Konkrete Kids improved to 2-0 with 16 hits. The game went just three innings.
Stroudsburg 9, East Stroudsburg South 0
Jordan King tossed a 4-hitter with five strikeouts. She also doubled in a run at the plate as the Mounties won their opener. Elena Trotter went 4-for-4 with two RBIs and scored a run. Isabella Thomas went 2-for-3 with a triple and scored a run and knocked in one.
EPC baseball
Bethlehem Catholic 11, Allen 6
Zach McCoy had two doubles and scored three runs and Phil Taylor and Caden Deegan each knocked in two runs as the visiting Golden Hawks (1-1) outslugged the Canaries in a game that featured 19 hits and nine errors. Tyler Santay worked 3.1 innings of scoreless relief, allowing just two hits, to collect the win. Erick Lopez had four hits for the Canaries (0-2).
Emmaus 6, Nazareth 4
Aaron Fleetwood had three hits, scored two runs and knocked in two as the Green Hornets fought back from a 4-0 first-inning deficit and scored twice in the fifth and sixth innings to improve 2-1. Nazareth fell to 0-2. Robert Barnes worked two innings of scoreless relief, allowing just one hit, to get the win after Cole Moreau struck out eight over five innings. Barnes also had two hits. Ryan Petruska had two hits for the Blue Eagles.
Liberty 13, Whitehall 0
Junior Liam Fitzpatrick tossed a two-hit shutout, Jacob Matthews went 3-for-3 with a pair of RBIs and Dylan Metzgar homered and doubled in a 13-hit attack as the Hurricanes rolled to a five-inning win and improve to 2-0. Jaxon Horvath had two doubles for Liberty, twp of their seven extra-base hits. Whitehall fell to 1-1.
Freedom 6, Parkland 1
Ryan Kullman hit his second grand slam of the week in the second inning to break a 1-1 tie and the Patriots (2-1) never looked back in an impressive road victory. John Phillips had two hits and an RBI and Colin Andrews doubled in a run. Winning pitcher Chase Walker worked six strong innings, allowing three hits, walking two and striking out eight. Parkland (1-1) got a double and a run scored by Will Dobil.
