Emmaus boys lacrosse refocuses for stifling district semifinal win

Once Emmaus High School's boys lacrosse team gave Tuesday's contest its full attention, the result became straightforward.

The Green Hornets held their opponents scoreless for more than a half-hour to recover from a sluggish start and beat Delaware Valley 10-4 in the Districts 11/2 Class 3A subregional semifinals at Northampton’s Al Erdosy Stadium.

Emmaus (13-8), the third seed, advances to meet the winner of the Parkland-Easton matchup in the district final 7 p.m. Thursday at Lehigh University’s Ulrich Sports Complex.

Delaware Valley (15-6), the second seed and Wyoming Valley Lacrosse League champion, held a 2-1 advantage after the first quarter, before the Green Hornets defense clamped down.

The Eastern Pennsylvania Conference squad held the Warriors scoreless for the next 34:22 of game action.

“Coming into the game, I think with a lot of our guys, our heads weren’t exactly set,” senior defender Braedon LaBar said. “We were focused a little bit more on the future than on the game at hand. At halftime, we focused up. We said to ourselves: ‘This is it. If we lose right here, we’re going home.’”

“We got off to a slow start,” Green Hornets coach Scott Ketcham said. “High school kids will make mistakes — they’re kids. They took a team for granted early on, and it didn’t kill us.”

Senior midfielder Blake Speicher buoyed Emmaus’ offense through a lackluster first half, scoring all three of the team’s goals.

Speicher, son of assistant coach Stu Speicher, finished with a career-high four goals.

“He’s an unsung hero,” Ketcham said. “He gets little credit. He’s a tough kid … That’s the beauty of having a coach’s kid on your team: he knows time, score and situation all the time. He really, really got us through that first half.”

Senior midfielder Tyler Corpora, the team’s leading scorer, paced Emmaus after the break with three third-quarter goals.

“Even though he’s maybe our best player and one of our best point-scorers ever, he learns on the field,” Ketcham said of Corpora. “He was frustrated in the first half, but he settled down the whole team in the second half … He made adjustments as a player, and the goals and assists followed.”

The Hornets ultimately scored eight unanswered before Delaware Valley tallied a goal with 7:02 remaining in the fourth quarter.

“That was just fixing little things,” said LaBar, a Siena College recruit. “The two goals we (gave up) in the beginning were just sloppy goals — the one was after not clearing the crease … We just stuck with what our plan was, which was playing good, solid ‘D’ and keeping the talk up.”

Senior goalie Ricky Milker finished with 10 saves for Emmaus. Junior Brent Meilinger added a goal and three assists.

Emmaus has an opportunity Thursday to elevate an up-and-down season with its sixth District 11 championship.

“I know for a fact, that whoever we have on Thursday, it’s going to be a good fight,” LaBar said. “Emotionally, we have to stay focused and keep our heads straight.”

“We’ve got to empty the tank,” Ketcham said. “We’ve shown the ability to do things all year. We’ve got to get over the top. We’ve got to finish games better; we’ve got to play a smarter brand of game. If we do that and throw everything at it, we’ve got a shot against anybody.”

Kyle Craig may be reached at kcraig@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KyleCraigSports. Find Lehigh Valley high school sports on Facebook.