Locals lock up EPC berths
Mother Nature’s weather pattern has already pushed back the East Penn Conference baseball tournament to next week, but hopefully the delay doesn’t disrupt Liberty’s scorching last month of play.
The Hurricanes (14-5) are winners of 10 of their last 12 games, as their regular season winds down against Freedom on Tuesday night.
Liberty was battling Pocono Mountain East (14-4), Emmaus (12-7) and Nazareth (15-4) for the top spot in the EPC tournament, which was supposed to get underway this Thursday, but will now begin next Monday because of the frequency of rain this week.
Head coach Andy Pitsilos would like to keep his team in rhythm with a league playoff game this week, but is still happy with how the team has played over the course of the season.
“I like the way our team has progressed offensively over the last three weeks,” Pitsilos said. “I actually like three games in a week. It shows how good a team is rather than how good your number one pitcher is.”
Liberty won the EPC tournament last year and will be right in the mix to contend for the league crown again, but Freedom 911-7) and Bethlehem Catholic (13-5) will also be in the mix.
Freedom coach John Bisco is happy to see his team qualify for the league tourney after missing out the last three seasons.
“That was one of our many goals this year,” said Bisco. “Making the postseason for both tournaments I want to become an expectation. We still have games left to play and we want to continue playing our brand of good baseball heading into the postseason.”
Freedom had Liberty on Tuesday night and closes out the regular season on Wednesday against Dieruff.
Becahi was looking to secure their EPC berth by getting at least one win in their final two outings against Easton or Nazareth.
“It would be our third berth in four years and that would be huge for the program,” said head coach Matt Corsi. “These kids work hard everyday and deserve it. The EPC tournament is a great warm up for districts. But we are in it to win it.”
Standings
North
Div EPC Ovr
PM East 9-0 13-2 14-4
Stroudsburg 5-4 7-8 9-9
ES South 5-4 6-9 8-11
PM West 4-4 4-10 5-11
Pleasant Valley 3-6 3-12 5-14
ES North 0-8 0-14 0-16
East
Liberty 6-2 12-2 14-4
Nazareth 6-1 11-3 14-4
Freedom 5-3 10-4 11-7
Becahi 5-3 9-5 13-5
Easton 3-6 5-10 6-12
Dieruff 0-9 1-14 3-15
West
Emmaus 7-2 12-3 12-7
Parkland 6-3 11-4 14-5
Whitehall 6-3 8-7 11-7
Northampton 4-5 9-6 13-6
CCHS 2-7 6-9 8-11
Allen 2-7 5-10 6-12