For Salisbury, the Pennsylvania American Legion Baseball Region 2 Tournament got ugly even before it started.

Three days before the opening game, Salisbury was informed that it would not play its first game on Saturday night, but rather Saturday afternoon. That may not seem like a major issue, but many of the Salisbury players had asked for time off from summer jobs or otherwise rearranged schedules so they would be available for the game. The late change sent players and coaches scrambling.

Once the tournament opened, Salisbury had just 11 players on its roster. The Falcons lost their first two games and were eliminated from the tournament Sunday afternoon. They lost to Nazareth 4-3 on Saturday and then lost a heartbreaker to Pottstown on Sunday, falling 7-6 in 11 innings.

"I can't say enough about how our guys played this weekend, especially after all we went through to get here and then adjusting our schedules," said coach Scott Heppenheimer after Sunday's loss. "They came up big, but we just didn't get it done."

Salisbury appeared to have won the game in the bottom of the ninth. The Falcons had the bases loaded with two outs and a 3-1 pitch to Javier Rivera appeared low and away, but it was called a strike. On the next pitch, Rivera hit the ball hard, but center fielder Sage Reinhart pulled in the ball for the final out of the inning.

In the top of the 10th it looked like Salisbury would fall behind by a run when Nick Zipay hit a high fly ball to center field and Reinhart tug up from third to home after the catch. He was initially called safe when the ball rolled away from catcher Evan Kulig. After Heppenheimer approached the umpires, they gathered and determined that the runner should have been called out for not sliding on a close play. The run came off the board and the inning ended.

"I wasn't surprised that they overturned the call," said Heppenheimer. "First, because I think they knew they made a bad call on that 3-1 pitch and second, because it was pretty clear cut. The kid didn't slide. He sort of barreled into our guy and that's when the ball came out. You have to slide on those plays. That's the way the rule is written."

For much of the game, Heppenheimer had to shift players around the field to make pitching changes, because he ran out of bench players in the seventh inning.

"I think if I would have had one more pitcher that I could have gone to or one more change that I could have made, we might have won," said Heppenheimer. "You can't take anything away from them [Pottstown] though, because they're a good team and have a few Division 1 prospects who are real good players."

Justin Aungst had four hits and an RBI for Salisbury in addition to pitching six strong innings, allowing just one earned run. Brad Vangeli didn't have a big day at the plate, but came up big for Salisbury starting the day in center field before coming in to catch and then winding up on the mound for 2 2/3 innings of work.

Overall, Salisbury went 11-7 in the regular season after getting a late start in Lehigh Valley Legion because of the high school team's run to the PIAA semifinals.

The Salisbury Legion team finished as the runner-up in the LVL Tournament, which earned it a spot in the regional. The regional games were played at Bear Stadium in Boyertown, which will also be home to the Pennsylvania Legion Championship.