Lady Eagles Fall to Trinity International

On Friday November 6, our Lady Eagles of Emmaus Bible College took on Trinity International in Deerfield, IL. With Trinity being a part of the NAIA which allows their student athletes to receive athletic scholarships, it was tough to project how our ladies of Emmaus would do against higher-level competition. Coach Graw said, "When we decided to play in the La Quinta classic against two NAIA opponents, I didn't really know what to expect. I knew we were farther along than the year before but NAIA is much more intense and physical, and you have to play almost perfectly if you want to compete. My hope was that this weekend would push us to get better and that we could learn how to be successful playing against this type of competition. If you get beat by 70 points, it's not beneficial for either team. If you can compete and hang around under 20 or so, then that means you are doing things well and you are using the adversity to grow and get better. The truth is, we played better than I expected and it gave them a scare here and there. Coach Beil and I are very proud of these girls."

The game started off with a score of 10 to 24 at the end of the first quarter. The Lady Eagles looked a bit shell-shocked at the beginning, playing tentative and shy as Trinity International struck first. The Emmaus Ladies were faced with a choice: they could quit in fear and just try to survive, or fight back. Fight back they did, as they scored 16 points in the second quarter putting the halftime score at 26-48 with Trinity ahead. Even though the Trojans were up 22 at the half, there was a shift in the Lady Eagles' mindset. They knew that they could play at this level and they were ready to come out in the third quarter, fighting every possession. With stifling defense, Emmaus held Trinity to only 9 points in the third quarter and put up 14 of their own which cut the score down to just 17 points going into the fourth quarter. But with a rotation of just six, the Lady Eagles found fatigue to be their greatest opponent in the 4th quarter as they continued to fight but would eventually fall by a score of 52-87. Madison Laib led in scoring with 22 points followed by Rachel West's 12. Marissa Kerttula pulled down eight rebounds coming off the bench for the Lady Eagles.  

With Shelby Hembera sitting out this weekend, the Lady Eagles were down to eight girls with a rotation of six for most of the game. Hembera suffered a severe injury to her ankle her senior year of high school and has only been back live for a week and a half, playing in the Alumni and UW-Richland games. "Shelby and I had been talking about keeping her out of this weekend's games for quite some time. Since she was just getting back to live competition, I wasn't comfortable putting her into a game against an NAIA opponent and putting her at risk for re-injury," coach Graw said. Hembera will be suited up and ready to go this Friday against AFLBS. Alli Howard will also be suited up for this upcoming weekend after a successful season on our Emmaus Volleyball team and Savannah Petersen (Volleyball) will be joining the following week, taking a little bit of a break before joining up.