Northampton and Freedom were in a race with Mother Nature to squeeze in their Saturday baseball game. A lightning strike within 6 miles of Mike Lisetski Field sent the fans to their cars and the teams into the high school with the K-Kids leading 5-4 with the Patriots having 2 outs in the sixth inning and no one on base.

After an hour of checking various weather apps and hoping for a break in the storms, the umpiring crew declared the field unplayable, granting Northampton their ninth win of the season.

Second baseman Mason Haupt described the teams’ approach to the weather delay, “We were keeping ourselves active, playing volleyball doing team bonding activities. Just trying to get through the rain delay and keep playing the game.” He continued, “We struggled early, but then we all started hitting the ball and scoring runs and came back and ended up winning the game.”

Freedom jumped on top with three unearned runs in the first inning. A throwing error gave the Patriots their first baserunner, who was doubled home by Kevin Kullman. A 2-out double by Alex Suarez plated two more. The visitors added one more in the second when another throwing error by the Kids proved costly.

Northampton got one run back in the third when Logan Higgins hit a 2-out triple to the left center and Haupt followed with a single to left.

The Kids’ bats got hot in the fourth inning. Dylan Fosko led off with a ball that one-hopped into the fence in left for a stand-up double. Sam Erschen delivered a line drive up the middle to plate Fosko. With two out, Evan Hughes doubled down the left field line to drive in Erschen. Ian Onuschak struck the decisive blow, knocking in Nate Wolfe and Hughes with a single to put Northampton on top.

Freedom got their leadoff man on in the fifth, but he was erased when the Kids turned a sacrifice bunt attempt into a 3-4-6 double play.

Logan Higgins pitched all 5 2/3 innings, giving up 5 hits, 2 walks, striking out 2, and allowing no earned runs.

The win pushed Northampton’s win total to 9 on the season, on the cusp of automatic district qualifying. With seven games left in the regular season, they are 9-4 overall and 7-3 in the EPC.

On Friday, the K-Kids host Allen. They thumped the Canaries 22-4 earlier in the season, but Allen has a respectable 5 wins this year. On Tuesday, they travel to Emmaus to try to sweep the season series from the defending EPC champion Hornets.