Liberty pitchers picked up 16 of the 18 outs they recorded via a strikeout, but Emmaus hitters put the bat on the ball just enough to pick up a 6-3 win over Liberty in the Lehigh Valley Conference semifinals at Hackett's Park in Easton.

The real culprit was a third inning that saw Emmaus take advantage of two Liberty errors, four walks and two wild pitches to score four runs and go up 4-0. Even with everything that went wrong for starter Matt Leon in the third inning, he still struck out the side en route to recording the first ten outs all on strikeouts.

The disastrous third started with two walks and a base hit to left to load the bases with nobody out. A ground ball to Thomas Epsaro at short took a wild bounce off the lip of the grass and allowed the first run of the game to score for a 1-0 Emmaus lead.

Leon came back to strikeout power-hitter Jason Fatzinger for the first out, before another ground ball was hit to Epsaro, who fielded the ball, but lost control of it when he attempted to make the force play at second base and aggressive base-running plated two more Emmaus runs. The Hornets got one more run on a wild pitch as they grabbed a 4-0 lead.

"We were very fortunate, because that young man [Leon] had that one tough inning. Without that, I don't know if we would have figured him out," admitted Emmaus coach John Schreiner.

In all, Leon threw 48 pitches in the inning and would only be able to give Liberty 4 2/3 innings of work before exiting. In all, Leon struck out 13 batters, allowing six hits and walking five, with just two of the five runs that he allowed being earned. Ben Hudock came on in relief of Leon and worked the final 1 1/3 innings for Liberty, allowing one run.

"It's unfortunate, because our defense didn't give Matt much help. He could have gotten out of that inning with 18 or 19 pitches, but instead, he had to throw a lot more and who knows how much that changed the game for us," said Liberty coach Andy Pitsilos.

The Hurricanes had their chances throughout the night, but couldn't push a run across the plate until the sixth inning when Abner Santana hit into a fielder's choice with runners on first and third, scoring Tim Erney, who opened the inning with a walk and advanced on a wild pitch and a base hit by Matt Unangst.

Joel Bartoni came on in relief of starter Josh LeMaster in the seventh and Liberty went to work against the new guy to mount a seventh inning rally. Epsaro launched a long, high shot over the left field scoreboard for the first extra base-hit of the night for the Hurricanes. Robert Mercado then doubled and scored on an RBI single from Tyler Erney to cut Emmaus' lead to 6-3 before Bartoni would get the final out of the inning to end the uprising and send Emmaus to the finals.

"We're not good enough to make that many mistakes and win games. They beat us tonight with a very good pitcher on the mound, but in lots of ways, we beat ourselves, too," said Pitsilos.

Emmaus went on to play Parkland in the finals and were shutout 9-0 as the Trojans claimed the final LVC baseball title.

Prior to the game, the Lehigh Valley Conference All-Star Team was announced. Leon, a senior, was selected to the team as an outfielder and received an Honorable Mention as a pitcher. Junior Mike Mittl also made the first team as an outfielder.