Northampton head baseball coach Mick Sugra told his team an old baseball adage before their opening-round, East Penn Conference (EPC) tournament game at Pocono Mountain East on Monday.

Unfortunately, it worked against them.

“I told the kids before the game, and leading up to the game, that the team that makes the least mistakes wins this game,” said Sugra. “Unfortunately, we made four errors to their two.”

Northampton suffered a 4-3 loss to Pocono Mountain East Monday afternoon. The Konkrete Kids (14-7) will now wait for Emmaus, their likely opponent in an opening-round District 11 Class 6A game.

In the game against Pocono Mountain East, Billy Stuhldreher had two of the Kids’ six hits, and Mason Haupt and Austin Sommer had RBIs.

Logan Higgins allowed six hits and two unearned runs over five innings, and Erick Castro allowed an earned run over 1.1 innings.

PM East pitcher Adam Horvath, who is headed to James Madison on a baseball scholarship, was a difference-maker, as he struck out 10 NHS batters. The Kids had taken a 3-2 led into the fifth inning, but the Cardinals pushed across a pair of runs in their home seventh with the help of an error and a game-winning squeeze bunt to walk it off.

“We gave up two unearned runs in the first,” said Sugra. “Higgins battled and settled down after the first.

“We had an error on a ground ball that got into the outfield. The ball skipped away from our third baseman on the throw and went under the fence to go out of play and the run scored.

“We loaded the bases to create the force. They squeeze bunted and scored on a close play at home.”

Sugra is confident this team will bounce back in the upcoming district playoffs.

“That’s baseball,” he lamented. “It hurts bad. But we have to regroup and get ready for districts. We proved [Monday] we can score runs off one of the top pitchers in the area.

“I still firmly believe we are a very good baseball team, and one of the best in the district. We just have to stay focused and make plays.”