Liberty kept their lead in the EPC East Division Monday night following a 5-4 win over Bethlehem Catholic in extra innings.

The Christmas City rivals needed nine innings to finish things out at Freemansburg Baseball Complex when the Hawks stormed back from a 4-1 deficit in the seventh to tie the game, but eventually saw things end when JC Spinosa belted an RBI single in the ninth to score Tommy Mason.

It was the third straight win for the Hurricanes (12-4) and seventh out of their last eight, highlighted by an 18-1 win over Nazareth last week.

“The Nazareth win was big,” said head coach Andy Pitsilos. “It puts us in control of the division and was good for our confidence. The team is definitely better today than it was in the beginning of the year which is all you can hope for. We need to just keep pushing and playing our brand of baseball.”

Liberty has three games left on the schedule, two this week, including against Freedom on Wednesday and a nonleague showdown against Muhlenberg on Saturday. They close out the regular season next Monday against Easton before getting ready for the EPC playoffs, which start on May 11.

The Hurricanes are positioned to finish with one of the top four seeds, at the worst, for the EPC playoffs, but were seeded second as of this week behind top-seeded Parkland (16-2).

Monday’s loss for the Hawks (11-7) snapped a four-game win streak, but still kept them atop the District 11 4A power rankings and should allow them to solidify an EPC tourney berth with their regular season finale against Dieruff (1-15) on Wednesday.

Freedom (7-9) is still fighting for their postseason lives, but got a major 5-3 win over Nazareth last week to give them a huge shot of momentum down the home stretch.

The Pates have four games left and need to win one league game to clinch a district berth. They have Dieruff and Liberty this week and close out with Stroudsburg (8-8) and Easton (7-8) next week with an outside shot of cracking the EPC tournament.