The Emmaus Legion team stretched out its season not just to the final day, but to an extra one-game playoff against West Allentown for the final spot in the Lehigh Valley Legion postseason.

Unfortunately for the Hornets, West Allentown proved to be too much and beat Emmaus 7-2 to grab the eighth and final playoff spot.

Emmaus forced the one-game playoff by gaining a split in a pair of games with Fullerton Saturday.

The first game was a resumption of a suspended game from earlier in the season that was tied at 3-3 after the regulation seven innings of play.

Hunter Russiano drilled a two-out double that brought Jacob Fick in from second base for what would prove to be the winning run.

Fick took the mound in the bottom of the inning and preserved the win, upping his record to 2-2 on the season.

Being the workhorse of the staff, Fick also started the nightcap.

Emmaus scored a first-inning run when Kristyan Koenig was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded and one out. Unfortunately for the Hornets, Fullerton pitcher Jeff Charles got a groundball double-play to get out of the jam.

Fullerton came up with an unearned run in the second, only to see Emmaus pick up two more runs in the top of the third inning, both coming on bases-loaded walks to Austin Miller and Brandon Balliet.

Charlie Barebo drove home a run with an RBI single in the fourth, giving Emmaus a 4-2 lead heading to the bottom of the fourth inning.

The heat may have slowed Fick a little in the fourth, when he allowed four runs on four hits and two walks, the big blast coming on a Matt Melosky home run.

Fullerton scored four more runs in the fifth and the Emmaus bats went silent from there. Tthey weren't able to mount a rally to challenge Fullerton, suffering a 10-4 loss.

Had Emmaus won both ends of the double header, the one-game playoff with West Allentown wouldn't have been necessary and the Hornets would have locked up the eighth seed in the post-season and a tough meeting with North Parkland.

"We make one play here or there in those big innings and it would have changed everything," said manager Mike Anderson. "That's been the story for us all season and we just don't come up big in those situations."

Emmaus was without Cody Eastland and Andrew Nixon for the visit to Fullerton. Nixon had pitched the night before and pitched well, but Emmaus fell to Northern Valley 4-1. Eastland is undergoing shoulder surgery to repair an injury that greatly hampered his throwing throughout the LVL season.

Anderson, in his first season at the helm of Emmaus, guided the Hornets to a 5-13 record.