Emmaus swarms over Honesdale, 11-0
Honesdale High School won the District 2 Class 3A field hockey championship for the first time this season and earned a state tournament bid, also a first in program history.
The prize?
The Hornets took a two-hour bus ride only to find themselves in, well, another hornets’ nest.
Emmaus scored three goals in the first quarter and never let up as the host Green Hornets defeated the visiting Hornets of Honesdale 11-0 in a PIAA Class 3A quarterfinal game Saturday afternoon at Memorial Field.
Emmaus (14-0) will play in the state semifinals for the 11th consecutive season. The next game, pandemic permitting, is a 2:30 p.m. Tuesday date at District 1 champion Central Bucks East. The season is over for Honesdale (5-7-2).
Sophomore Rachel Herbine had four goals, Annika Herbine had two goals and six assists and Alexis Kociban had two goals and two assists as Emmaus scored in each quarter and allowed Honesdale, temporarily and briefly, only three times into scoring territory. Emmaus goalkeeper Bailey Tietz and her backup, EmmaCari, did not have to field a shot on goal.
“Once we score, we get a lot of excitement. It helps us keep our focus because we want to keep doing it,” Emmaus midfielder Jenna Villeneuve said.
Emmaus reminds itself to continue playing its best.
“Because we know that it can get crazy and they can get some garbage goals, so we get every goal that we can get,” Kociban said.
Abby Burnett, Kociban and Annika Herbine, who signed with the University of Iowa earlier in the week, scored just six minutes apart in the first quarter. One more from Annika Herbine and two more from Rachel Herbine pushed the lead to 6-0 at the half, kicking in the mercy rule, which starts when a team gets a five-goal lead.
“It’s a state game,” Emmaus coach Sue Butz-Stavin said. “It was good for Honesdale to be here. They finally broke into the state tournament. I had a lot of confidence in our play that we could be successful today.”
Butz-Stavin did have one concern:
“We’re going to have to be a little more cautious with the ball when we play CBEast,” she said.
Like her teammates and others playing as port this fall, Ville neuve is just happy to still be playing, an unbeaten season aside. Several schools across the Lehigh Valley and the state have been forced to cancel seasons entirely because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Knowing that it could end at any time, we just want to play every game like it’s our last, so we put all of our effort into every single game,” she said. “We just keep going and hope that it does not end.”
In other PIAAaction, Bloomsburg defeated Northwestern Lehigh 2-1 in a Class A quarterfinal, but no other details about the game were available at press time.