After losing their first game in the Pennsylvania American Legion Region 2 Tournament, the North Parkland Buffaloes knew that their road to the championship would be much tougher than originally thought. Their opening opponent, Oley/Topton, downed North Parkland 5-0, pushing the Buffaloes into the loser's bracket of the double-elimination tournament.

In their next game, North Parkland faced Easton, the number two team from the Northampton County Legion League, and things took an ugly turn. Parkland opened the game with five straight singles and put up three first-inning runs. The hitting continued and after five innings of play, the Buffaloes had a 10-0 lead. In tournament play, the ten-run rule doesn't come into effect until after seven innings, so the game continued.

In the top of the sixth, Easton pitcher Ryan Statham inadvertently pitched out of the wind up with Aiden Flynn on second base. Even though the Buffaloes had a large lead, Flynn stole third base. Statham then hit batter Kevin Jones with a pitch, prompting home plate umpire Jan Tashman to approach Statham.

Easton manager Mickey Corpora objected to Tashman speaking to his pitcher rather than coming to him about the incident and argued his point, leading Tashman to throw Corpora out of the game.

"When he went into the wind up, that's almost an automatic that you take the base, no matter what the score is," said North Parkland manager Terry Stoudt about the incident. "I'm not a fan of the 10-run rule, but it's there, so I'm going to use it and I wanted every run we could get to keep the game to seven innings and save a little of my pitching."

Easton battled back, but North Parkland eventually took a 13-3 victory in seven innings.

"I don't think he [Corpora] was upset about the stolen base. I think he was upset that the umpire went to the pitcher rather than coming to him about the incident," explained Stoudt, who said he didn't believe Statham was throwing at Jones. "I think if you reverse things, they would have stolen the base, too."

Rain wiped out the Monday schedule, pushing North Parkland's match-up with Nazareth back to Tuesday when play was able to resume. Nazareth and Parkland went toe-to-toe and were tied 3-3 after nine innings, although for a short time it looked like Nazareth had taken a lead in the eighth inning.

What appeared to be a sacrifice fly was wiped out when North Parkland appealed at third base, believing that Tyler Snyder left the base before the catch was actually made. The umpires agreed and Snyder was ruled out, keeping the tie in place. The Buffaloes loaded the bases in the bottom of the inning, but came away empty.

In the bottom of the 11th, Nick Helfrich led off as a pinch-hitter and drew a walk and stole second. Brad Vasilik put down a sacrifice bunt to move him to third and Walt Roland lifted a fly ball deep enough for Helfrich to score the winning run in the 4-3 game.

Pitcher Tyler Duff put on an amazing display in the win, throwing all 11 innings and a total of 157 pitches, to get the win.

"Actually, I still felt fine. I could have gone the full 12 innings that you're allowed to pitch," said Duff, who is known for having somewhat of a rubber arm. Duff admitted that was the longest he had ever pitched and the most pitches he ever threw in a game, but he still seemed to be strong and was throwing strikes.

Because of the rain on Monday, teams had to play two games Tuesday and North Parkland went up against host Boyertown, hoping to make it to Championship Day on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the Bears jumped all over Roland, who started the game for the Buffaloes and took an 8-0 loss to eliminate North Parkland.

Of the 16 players on their roster, 15 are eligible to return next season, giving North Parkland good reason to believe they'll be travelling back to Boyertown again a year from now with even higher expectations.