It's been awhile since the Salisbury Connie Mack baseball team qualified for the postseason.

But that streak can be put to rest after a stellar regular season that awarded the Falcons the No. 5 seed with a 12-5-1 record. Once the postseason got underway, the Falcons continued that momentum in the opening game of a three-game set against South Parkland.

The Falcons, behind a three-hit, nine-strikeout performance from Andrew Sukanick, edged South Parkland with two runs in the third inning for a 2-1 victory at Salisbury High School. That gave Salisbury a 1-0 series advantage with Game 2 scheduled for Wednesday.

"I don't know how many playoff games these guys really played," coach Scott Heppenheimer said. "I think they played a couple in the Lehigh Valley League. And [Joey] Galantini played on the varsity, so he got his feet wet in districts and stuff. Most of these other guys I don't think have ever played in the playoffs."

Should the Falcons defeat South Parkland in the series, they'll move on to the state playoffs at Limeport Stadium.

"We're one game away," Heppenheimer said. "It would be nice to go down and play at Limeport. The Bucks-Mont teams are pretty loaded. Most of those kids are high school players and play. It would be a good experience to go down there and play with a little bit of pressure. We still have South Parkland and have to beat them in one more game."

The Falcons' pitching staff guided the team to one of the better seasons in recent memory. That core, which includes Sukanick, Cole Warmkessel, Taylor Linn and Eric Schware, who will all be sophomores in the 2015-16 school year, got off to a solid start once the postseason opened.

"Our pitching is definitely our strength," Heppenheimer said. "Warmkessel I think was 6-1 this year. Linn was 4-0. Schware, I don't know how many innings he pitched for legion, was pretty solid. We have four quality guys, and Lucas Irwin can also throw.

"He [Sukanick] pitched against most of the big teams. He no-hit Hellertown until the middle of the sixth inning. He pitched against Nazareth and most of the really good teams."

Sukanick, who got a number of starts on varsity when Chad Cooperman went down with an injury, was the main piece of that staff that pitched for Salisbury in the spring. Warmkessel also pitched a few innings on varsity.

Galantini suited up in the outfield on varsity. Colin Wagner (.256 batting average with 14 runs and 7 RBIs) saw time in the infield. Schware played first base in the spring.

It's a young group that Heppenheimer expects to have a big impact on varsity next year under Salisbury High School head coach Mike Pochron.

"A lot of the teams in the league have older players," Heppenheimer said. "I think we're probably one of the youngest teams. We have an eighth-grader, and most of our kids are ninth graders.

"We decided to coach the Connie Mack team this year basically because this group of ninth graders has a lot of potential. A lot of these ninth graders will probably start on the varsity team next year."

And while every team would like to win as much as possible, Heppenheimer and Bob Sopko, who are also both varsity assistant coaches, put teaching the game of baseball above everything else with equal opportunity across the board.

"Sopko's philosophy for most of the season was to get everybody about equal amounts of playing time in the first 11 games," Heppenheimer said.

Galantini, Warmkessel and Pete Dubois were named to the Connie Mack All-Star Game. Galantini led the Falcons with a staggering .522 batting average with 19 RBIs and 17 runs. Warmkessel batted .347 with 10 runs and 9 RBIs, and Dubois finished the regular season at .326 with 13 RBIs and 12 runs.

Five other Falcons batted over .300: Schware (.400), Andrew Fletcher (.375), Lucas Irwin (.359), Trevor Freeman (.324) and Peter Forestieri (.318).

As a team, the Falcons were awarded the sportsmanship award out of the 19 competing teams in Connie Mack.

Game 2 against South Parkland is on Wednesday at Wehr's Dam at 5:30 p.m.