Northern Valley may have outhit Whitehall Tuesday at Sammy Balliet Stadium in Whitehall, but for the third time in a row, the Chargers couldn’t out score the Zephyrs in Lehigh Valley Legion play.

Northern Valley (6-10) and Whitehall (8-5) met three times in the last 10 days with Whitehall winning all three of the games, holding Chargers hitters to just a .190 average and giving up seven runs in the three games.

The latest setback was a 2-0 loss in the opening round of the LVL playoffs, a double-elimination tournament that will send one team to the regional playoffs that begin later this month.

Northern Valley’s Shaun O’Donnell and Whitehall’s Ryan Lindenmuth got the start for their respective teams Tuesday and neither pitcher appeared willing to give much to the opposing hitters.

O’Donnell retired the first 14 hitters he faced until Nick Kotsch reached on an infield single with two outs in the fifth inning only to have O’Donnell get his fifth strikeout of the game on three pitches to end the inning.

Lindenmuth wasn’t quite as dominating but was cruising until Northern Valley put together a bit of an offensive uprising in the top of the third.

With two outs, Bobby Croneberger walked and Trey Sterling followed with a single to right to put runners on the corners only to have Lindenmuth regroup and use the next three pitches to get his third strikeout to end the inning.

In the middle innings it looked like the Whitehall pitcher was toying with Northern Valley hitters, allowing them just enough offense to raise their hopes before dashing them.

After their close call in the third, Josh Lichman, the Chargers leadoff hitter, was down 0-2 before lining a double to left to start the inning. A groundout moved Lichman to third, but Lindenmuth stiffened, and the Chargers again failed to push home the run. The inning repeated itself in the sixth when O’Donnell led off with a double and moved to third on a ground ball only to be stranded there.

“We had some opportunities but we just couldn’t come up with the big hit that we needed to get a lead,” said Northern Valley coach Brad Rauch. “If we get something along the way, maybe it puts more pressure on them and changes the game, but he [Lindenmuth] just shut us down today.”

It took until the bottom of the sixth for Whitehall to get to O’Donnell when they came up with back-to-back singles to put runners on first and third. Sudge Hoderewski then delivered a fly ball to center that was deep enough to score a run and Tyler Reichenbach followed with an RBI double for a 2-0 lead.

Northern Valley continued to battle down to their final out of the game.

Max George worked a walk and Croneberger followed with a single to center to bring the go-ahead run to the plate. Sterling hit a hard grounder to short, but Hoderewski fielded the ball cleanly and calmly threw to first for the final out of the game.

“Our guys will have to bounce back, and we’ll come back and keep fighting,” said Rauch. “It’s not over for us, but we made things tougher on ourselves with the early loss. We just have to come back and see if we can put together a run.”

Northern Valley returns to action Thursday facing the winner of the Southern Lehigh (4-11) and Emmaus (0-13) game.