The Northampton softball team hosted a desperate Parkland squad on Monday in the second of their regular season meetings. The Trojans were on the outside looking in at districts, sporting a 7-9 record and needing a win over the Kids or Emmaus to qualify with a .500 league record.

The K-Kids missed some opportunities to put away their EPC West rivals as Parkland took the contest 4-2.

Northampton squandered some scoring chances in the first two innings by making outs on the base paths. They had a pair of singles and a walk in the first and failed to score. In the second, the K-Kids only managed one run with two singles, a walk, and an RBI double by Hannah Makovsky.

Meanwhile, Parkland only had two hits total through the first four innings, but Brenna Zavecz and Cece Quiroz had them back-to-back in the top of the second to take a 1-0 lead.

The score remained tied at 1-1 until the fifth when the Trojans clustered their other 3 hits of the game around a walk to plate 2 more runs. Evelyn Montone had the big blow with a triple to left field with one out.

Northampton got one back in the bottom of the fifth when Hannah Duerr smacked a frozen rope to left center for an RBI double to drive in Makovsky.

The Kids got the tying run into scoring position with two out in the sixth but could not convert. A pair of Northampton miscues in the outfield gave Parkland an insurance run in the top of the seventh. The K-Kids could only manage a 2-out single by Duerr in their final turn at bat.

Head coach Kristy Henritzy talked about the disappointment of the loss, “We just dropped a tough game to Emmaus and we have to be able to bounce back. We just didn’t do what we needed to do today. They’re (Parkland) getting better, but so are we. That’s the tough part. There were some things that we normally execute on a regular basis that we didn’t get done.”

Pending the result of Wednesday’s contest against Whitehall, Northampton’s record stands at 13-4 overall and 11-4 in the EPC. They have comfortably qualified for both EPCs and districts, but their possible seeding has a wide variance.

Due to a series of rainouts, the Kids still have two regular season games to make up before the postseason starts with EPCs next Thursday. Tonight, they play Freedom at the Northeast Little League fields in Bethlehem at 7 p.m. While the game is officially a nonleague game and will not affect the EPC seeding, it does have major implications for districts. The Patriots currently sit atop the 6A power rankings. Northampton is second, but their rating is closer to number 6 Liberty than it is to Freedom.

They finish up by hosting Bangor on Friday. The Slaters are 10-6 this year and ranked second in 5A behind Whitehall.