Buffaloes chase SP in LV Legion
It wasn’t that long ago that North Parkland was stuck at 3-3 through its first six Lehigh Valley Legion games. Had that trend continued, North Parkland would be mired among four teams that are separated by just a half game in the middle of the Lehigh Valley Legion standings. Instead, a four-game winning streak has the Buffaloes looking to chase down South Parkland for the top spot. The last three wins have come in pretty easy fashion, including an 11-7 win at Southern Lehigh, a 12-2 win against Lower Macungie, and a 20-0 drubbing of Emmaus Tuesday night. During the streak, David Sepko is hitting .667 (6-9) with five runs scored and four RBI for North Parkland, including three hits in the win over Southern Lehigh. North Parkland (7-3) put up seven runs in the top of the second to take an 8-0 lead against the Spartans (4-5). The inning was helped along by two Southern Lehigh errors with Noah Trager driving in a run on a sacrifice fly and the big blow coming from Peyton Scherff, who delivered a bases-loaded triple and then scored the final run of the inning on a wild pitch. In the win over Lower Macungie (5-5), Leo Dauberman led the offense with two hits and two runs scored, while driving in three runs. North Parkland scored all of its runs in the span of three innings, starting with a five-run bottom of the third when a walk and hit by pitch put two runners on with one out. Tsubasa Magota stole a base and then scored on a wild pitch before Dauberman’s single brought in the second run of the inning for a 2-1 lead. Gavin Mohry followed with a single and Chase Whittaker brought in two runs with a double before scoring on a sacrifice fly from Nate Unger for a 5-1 lead. In the fourth, Dauberman drove in two runs with his second single and then scored on a wild pitch for an 8-2 lead. The Buffaloes finished their three-inning spurt with four runs in the fifth with wild pitches bringing in the first two runs and an RBI single from Trager producing another run. Sepko got the win pitching 3 1/3 innings and Unger followed with 1 2/3 scoreless innings. North Parkland used a nine-run inning and an 11-run inning to beat Emmaus (0-10) behind 11 hits. Emmaus committed seven errors in the game, but they led to just three unearned runs. Nine of the 10 players used by the Buffaloes collected hits and scored a run, while all 10 of them drove in at least one run. Sepko and Mohry both picked up a pair of singles in the game. Sepko scored three times and drove in two runs and Mohry scored twice with an RBI. In addition to Sepko, Scherff, Cody Colarusso, Whittaker, Tyler McNichols, Trager and Logan Keeler all drove in two runs. The offense was also helped by North Parkland hitters collecting 10 hits and striking out just twice. North Parkland plays Northern Valley (5-5) and then has a rematch with Southern Lehigh. The regular season comes to an end next Tuesday in what could be a game to decide the regular season championship against South Parkland (9-1).