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LEHIGH VALLEY WEATHER

Roughies fall to Spartans in semis

Catasauqua head coach Steve Bradley and his club quickly discovered it wasn't going to be their day Tuesday afternoon at Limeport Stadium.

Making their first Colonial league playoff appearance since 2001, the third-seeded Roughies fell behind early against the second-seeded Southern Lehigh and never recovered as they suffered a 14-4 defeat. Catty (12-9 overall, 10-6 league) will now wait until the District 11 playoffs get underway next week.

In the top of the first-inning, Catty has two runners picked off that extinguished a possible big inning. After two outs in the bottom of the first inning, Southern Lehigh exploded for six runs and basically corralled the Roughies the rest of the way.

"We could have had a big inning," reflected Bradley. "By having two guys picked off, we gave them two outs. It seemed to take the wind out of our sails. They came back and scored six runs on us. We can't do that against a good team.

"They hit the ball and made several good plays. We just weren't there mentally today. We shot ourselves in the foot too many times." Zack Bradley, who arguably has developed into the ace of the staff, began the game for Catty and he was followed by Jeff Trexler and Jordan Santee. However, none of them could silence Southern Lehigh's bats.

"Zack (Bradley)wasn't sharp," said the head coach of his son. "He had trouble early and he always has trouble starting. Usually when he gets out of the first inning, he's fine. But we had the wheels come off.

"They (Southern Lehigh) hit Trexler hard, too. (Santee) was one of our JVs and he hung in there. We would have had Casey Simmons in that spot, but he had to attend a family funeral. (Simmons) has done a very good job for us in relief the past two weeks. We also thought about using Zach Stopay, but he was already in the field and would have taken some time to warm up." Zac Edwards has two hits for the Roughies and both Trexler and Brandon Purrone each had a double. Catty was also missing outfielder Carlos Perez from its lineup due to a school discipline issue.

"We didn't have a full lineup out there, but we're not going to use that as an excuse," added Bradley. "One hit for us in the first inning could have changed everything.

It was like we didn't come to play." Bradley is optimistic his club can quickly recover. The Roughies could play as late as Wednesday due to a reduced field from the 16 anticipated teams in the District 11 Class 2A bracket. "This season was definitely a big turnaround from last year," Bradley said. "We scratched and clawed our way to districts. This is a game that should be a learning experience for us. These guys now know what they have to do in the postseason.

"We're happy to get to the league playoffs and we knew it would be a battle with three other very good teams here.

We'll regroup and move on from here."