Had things gone as planned, the Lehigh Valley Legion League would already have its two spots for regionals set with a regular season champion and a tournament champion having been decided. Instead, rain has moved games around and on one occasion, the rain had subsided but left the field at North Parkland unplayable, so the game had to be suspended.

In the playoffs, the Salisbury bats are alive and well. The one loss suffered by Salisbury was to regular season champion South Parkland, which has gone undefeated in the postseason and was awaiting the winner of the Falcons game against North Parkland Monday evening.

Matt Nunez is hitting .600 in the postseason with a home run and six RBI, leading the team both in hitting and home runs over the stretch. Dominic Gracia leads the Falcons with seven RBI in the postseason. As a team, Salisbury is batting .363 in the playoffs.

The Falcons have also gotten good pitching in the postseason. Austin Spisszak and Tom Lovelidge have both pitched well in their one start and Owen Fogel has been strong out of the bullpen, holding opponents scoreless in 4 1/3 innings over two appearances with one walk and five strikeouts.

The opening win of the tournament was a nail biter. Salisbury got a first inning run on a home run from Nunez and added to the lead in the fourth when Andrew Grejda led off with a single and Owen Fogel followed with a double to put runners on second and third. Luke Soria followed with a sacrifice fly and Salisbury was up 2-0.

The Falcons added two more runs in the fifth with the first coming on an RBI single from Spisszak, who took second on the throw to the plate and later moved to third on a wild pitch. Gracia then drove him home with a base hit to give Salisbury a 4-0 lead through four innings.

Tom Lovelidge had been breezing on the mound but ran into trouble in the fifth when he gave up back-to-back singles to open the inning. With runners on first and second, Northern Valley put its first run on the board with a steal of home. One out later a single made it 4-2. An error by Lovelidge put runners on first and second. Lovelidge recorded the second out of the inning, but back-to-back singles brought in two more runs and Northern Valley took their first lead of the game when they went up 5-4.

Northern Valley gave up an unearned run in the bottom of the fifth to again tie the game, this time at 5-5 through five innings.

Neither team added another run until the bottom of the eighth. Lovelidge was hit by a pitch to give the Falcons a baserunner with one out. Nunez then doubled to put runners on second and third and the Chargers intentionally walked Spisszak to give Salisbury a bases-loaded, one-out situation. Gracia followed with a groundball through the middle to drive in Lovelidge with the winning run.

After the loss to South Parkland, Salisbury downed Allentown 11-1, ending the game with a five-run bottom of the fifth. Spisszak threw five innings, allowing three hits and four walks while striking out five in the game.

In a 9-8 win over Lower Macungie, Nunez had four hits, scored twice, and drove in three runs and Gracia drove in four. The winning run came in the top of the seventh when Nunez doubled to drive in Owen Fogel who had walked to lead off the inning.

South Parkland has locked up a spot in regionals by virtue of their regular season championship. The second spot in regionals will go to the winner of the Salisbury and North Parkland game with that team facing off against the Trojans to determine the tournament champion. Regionals begin Saturday at Boyertown High School.