EMMAUS - With a nearly two-week layoff between games, the Pleasant Valley girls soccer team traveled to Emmaus for its District 11 Class 4A quarterfinal matchup with the Hornets, who came into the game as the tournament's number-four seed.

The layoff, and rain that at times came in the form of a deluge, may have limited the No. 5 seed Bears' energy in the game, as their season ended with a 3-0 loss.Pleasant Valley struggled to get control in the first half of the game, with Emmaus keeping play on the Bears' side of the field for much of the first 40 minutes. Just eight minutes into the game, Reilly McGinnis fired a shot off the crossbar that bounced just outside of the Pleasant Valley goal as goalie Mikaela Miller responded to stop the ball from going into the net.With 6:40 left to play in the first half, Sophie Pickering took a near perfect crossing pass from Sarah Schuster and put it past Miller for the first goal of the game."We came out slow," said Pleasant Valley head coach Derek Strohl of his team's first game since Oct. 15. "The layoff was probably big, and [Emmaus] played quite a few games into the EPC, so they got some confidence toward the end of the season."Emmaus, which played three league playoff games to reach last week's league title game, got insurance goals in the second half, going up 2-0 on a goal by Chrissie Lambert and then Pickering assisted Maddie Fey with just under 20 minutes left to play to give Emmaus its 3-0 edge.PV finishes its season with a 12-5-3 overall mark, with appearances in both the EPC and the District 11 Tournament."I told the girls that I'm very proud of our season," said Strohl. "We won our division, so there's nothing to hang our heads down about. We just couldn't seem to get a rhythm with our offense and they did. That was the big difference in the game."Strohl noted that the weather may have affected some of the game plan, but didn't see too much of an affect on shots and wasn't going to use weather, or anything else - as an excuse for the loss."Both teams had to play in it, which is what I told our girls," he said. "Neither team really had an advantage. It's a turf field and we play on a turf field, so we were used to that. I didn't really see the ball skipping past goalies or anything and I think both teams handled the rain as well as they could."WHAT'S NEXT? ... Emmaus (15-6) will move on to play Parkland (22-0) for the fourth time this season, in the district semifinals on Tuesday, at a place and time to be determined. The two teams met twice in the regular season and then squared off again in the EPC finals last week, with Parkland winning all three games. The Trojans are the top seed in District 11.TOUGHNESS AWARD ... Miller left the game for a short time after being injured attempting to make a save on the second goal of the game. After a very short time on the bench, she returned to goal for Pleasant Valley.WHY PLAY IN THE RAIN? ... There was no thought given to postponing the game. The schools have season-ending football games Friday night, and Saturday wasn't an option because of a shortage of referees. Many soccer refs do both college and high school games and there is a heavy slate of college playoff games Saturday.