There's an old baseball cliché baseball that says one swing of the bat can change the game.

Salisbury's Chad Cooperman did just that with his grand slam in Monday's 8-4 win over Northwestern. The victory put Salisbury in the driver's seat of the Colonial League West division with one game remaining.

The pivotal playoff-like game appeared to be a pitchers' duel. Northwestern had a 2-0 lead after three innings thanks to Brady Mengel's two-hit performance from the plate, with a triple and an RBI, along with Taylor Breininger knocking in a run an stealing a pair of bases.

"We have some speed and he (Breininger) definitely possesses that," said Northwestern head coach Len Smith. "If he gets on he has the ability to run. We feel that our speed is a big asset, but the last few games we've been way too inconsistent with getting people on base. We haven't been able to move them like we want to."

The only Falcon to get to Tigers' ace Josh Williamson early on was Chase Rogers. The Salisbury leadoff hitter had an impressive stat line of a walk, a single, and a pair of doubles during the victory.

"We're the two top teams in our division right now so it was a very important game," said Salisbury head coach Mike Pochron. "Both teams came out throwing one of their top guys and it was a great game. He (Rogers) had a great day today and he set up the big sixth inning with the double down the line to start it off. "

Williamson was sharp early on, but the Falcons did all of their damage in innings four through six, scoring all eight of their runs over that span.

The Tigers were 9-1 in the Colonial League before their first loss to Salisbury, a 10-0 mercy-rule defeat on April 22. Heading into Wednesday's season finale against Catasauqua, the Tigers were 11-5 and tied with Salisbury.

"It's the way it's been here the last few weeks," said Smith. "Right now we're struggling at times. The game starts on the mound. If you don't go out there and (produce) you usually end up on the short end."

Jake Augustus relieved Williamson in a tough spot in the top of the sixth frame. Williamson left runners on second and third with no outs. After an intentional walk to load the bases, the first hitter that Augustus actually threw to was Cooperman.

Cooperman crushed a heater over the left field fence for a grand slam that broke a 4-4 tie and proved to be the game winner.

"We've been up and down the past few weeks," said Pochron. "We've played two or three good games and then we threw a clinker in there. It's sort of like the spring has been going, the weather has been crazy and we've had some crazy games.

"There are some games where we just boot the ball everywhere, and games when we play so well. Today we made the plays that we had to make and should get us into league playoffs."

The Tigers look to regroup for Wednesday's game, which was played after Press deadline. Win or lose, they will likely make the league playoffs, which start Saturday.

Division winners will get a bye into Tuesday's semifinals while the four teams with the best records that didn't win the division will begin play Saturday. Finals are scheduled for Thursday with all games at Limeport.