It may have taken three days and 12 innings of baseball, but Salisbury is headed to the Connie Mack state playoffs.

After Friday's game was suspended due to darkness at 4-4 in the eighth inning, Salisbury and South Parkland resumed play on Sunday with a berth in the state tournament on the line. It took quite a bit of time, but the Falcons' bases-loaded walk by Pete Dubois in the bottom of the 12th gave Salisbury a 5-4 victory and a 2-1 series victory against South Parkland.

"I think this will be my 16th year coming in, and I don't ever remember a Connie Mack team going to states," coach Scott Heppenheimer said. "But I'm sure in the '80s they had to have gone to states, but I'm not positive. I know it has been a long time.

"It's great that we get another week to play, and it's kind of like extending the high school season because all of these kids are Salisbury kids. I think it's benefiting them learning the game more, and it's stuff that we get to go over again from March."

Salisbury trailed 4-1 going into the bottom of the fifth inning, but that's when the Falcons' started to produce runs. Salisbury scored two runs in the fifth, making it a 4-3 game, and added the tying run in the seventh, which could have been the final inning of their season.

It was a complete 180-degree turn from their first two games of the series when the Falcons finished with a combined six hits. In Game 3, Salisbury's offense came to life for 14 hits, five of which came from its leading hitter Joey Galantini.

"I just don't think these guys wanted the season to end," Heppenheimer said. "We had 14 hits, and that doubled our hits from both games. Galantini had five, [Eric] Schware had three, and a couple of other kids chipped in with two. Basically our whole team hit the ball pretty well."

While Salisbury did produce timely runs when it needed them most, there were plenty of instances in which the Falcons could have ended the game earlier. In the end, however, the victory still advances Salisbury to states.

"We had plenty of opportunities," Heppenheimer said. "We didn't really hit the ball in the first two games; we might have had six hits total in the first two games. In Game 3, we ended up with 14 hits. We left a lot of guys on base. We had plenty of opportunities to score some runs.

"In the ninth or tenth inning [on Sunday] we had the bases loaded with one out, and we couldn't get the ball in play. I think it was strikeout, strikeout."

Salisbury faces Towamencin Township in the first round of the double-elimination state tournament. Not looking too far ahead, but should the Falcons earn a victory in that opening-round matchup, an unbeaten Hellertown (11-0-2) team awaits. Salisbury was responsible for one of those ties, drawing a 1-1 game earlier in the regular season.

"Our kids are looking forward to at least getting the first win and getting another game against Hellertown," Heppenheimer said. "They are Saucon Valley kids, and we play them all of the time."

Game time for Thursday's state game is 7:30 p.m. at Limeport Stadium.