Northampton’s baseball team is headed to the East Penn Conference playoffs beginning Thursday.

And the Konkrete Kids had a perfect segway to get there.

They defeated Southern Lehigh, 9-4, in their final home and regular season game Saturday afternoon to finish with an overall 13-7 mark (See page A10). Southern Lehigh was the top seeded team in the District 11 Class 5A bracket, and they entered the game with a 16-1 record.

“This was a nice win for us,” said head coach Mick Sugra. “They are a very good team. We told the kids to treat this as if it was our first playoff game.

“We had a good game expect for the fact that we had eight errors. Only one of their runs was an earned run.”

Sugra was concerned with the Kids’ sloppy play in the field. He noted that there have been four games where they have made too many errors this season.

“In this game, we had a third strike thrown over the first baseman’s head, and dropped balls to name a few errors. You can’t make it up.

“I don’t have any answers for it, but we have to clean it up.”

Against Southern Lehigh, Mason Haupt had a pair of hits with five RBIs, and Gavin Pychinka and Logan Higgins each had two hits.

Starter Owen Laury went five innings, allowing three hits and striking out five. Erick Castro pitched the final two innings.

Sugra stated his team could play Liberty or Nazareth, whoever is projected as the number two seed, in the opening round of the EPC playoffs (Official brackets were not released as of press time). The Kids are projected to be the seventh seed. Northampton has an overall 3-3 record in the EPC playoffs.

During the regular season, the Kids were beaten by Liberty, 11-1, March 31.

Sugra added that either Laury or Evan Hughes will get the start. Hughes went seven innings and allowed four this with 11 strikeouts

The Kids will begin the postseason hitting .342 as a team. Pychinka led the team with a .435 clip, followed by Logan Higgins (.426) and Aiden Maltese (.417), who were all over the .400 mark.

On the mound, Hughes was 4-1 with a 3.12 ERA and 42 strikeouts, and Laury was 4-2 with a 2.65 ERA and 21 strikeouts. Logan Higgins was 3-3 with a 3.88 ERA and 15 strikeouts. Erik Castro had 22 strikeouts in 20 innings of relief.

Sugra is confident his club can put it all together.

“We have been hitting the ball well, and the kids know what is at stake,” he said. “We just have to avoid making mistakes we shouldn’t make.”