Connor Higgins doesn't shy away from a battle and with the weapons that he's got on the mound, there's no reason to. The big left-hander gave his team all he could in a 2-1 win over Council Rock North in the PIAA Class AAAA quarterfinals last week.

The only downside for Higgins came in the fifth inning when coach Tony Galucy had Higgins issue an intentional walk to Brandon McIlwain with a runner on second and two outs.

If Higgins had things his way, he would have gone right after McIlwain, even though he almost went deep against Higgins earlier in the game. As it turned out, the next hitter, Cole German singled up the middle to tie the game, but Higgins refused to second guess his coach.

"Yeah, I wanted to pitch to him, but I respect the decision," said Higgins. "You don't know what might have happened, so it's hard to say it was the wrong decision and I respect what the coach wanted to do there."

Things almost got worse when the next hitter, Seth Luez, ripped a ball up the middle, but shortstop Chris Rabasco flashed to his left, made a diving stop and prevented any further damage in the inning.

"I never feel like I have to strike guys out because the guys behind me are always going to make plays," said Higgins. "Chris wasn't going to give up on that one and he saved me by making that play."

"It was nothing against Connor, it was just looking to put us in the best situation," said Galucy. "He's [McIlwain] their best hitter and going after German gave us a lefty-lefty matchup and I just liked our odds better there. I have faith in Connor in any situation; I just felt that was the right move."

In addition to making a potentially game-saving defensive play, Rabasco drove in the first run of the game for Parkland. He ripped an RBI single to right that drove in Justin Afflerbach, who finished the game with a single, a walk and two runs scored. Afflerbach scored the go-ahead run in the bottom of the fifth when he and Rabasco led off the inning with walks and moved up a base on a sacrifice by Tyler Bruno. Evan McAndrew followed with a long fly ball that allowed Afflerbach to score, putting Parkland back on top.

"I thought it was important that we came right back and got that run," said Galucy. "We're pretty loose, but playing with a lead even just a one-run lead just makes things easier and it kind of sends a message, too. I think that between the play from Chris and that run in the bottom of the inning, we stopped any momentum they were gathering."

Higgins had to face McIlwain, German and Luez in the seventh and this time, he plowed through them with relative ease. He started the inning by striking out McIlwain before German lined a shot that was destined to go up the middle, but Higgins was able to make a nice play on the ball as he completed his follow-through. Luez hit a little chopper right back to Higgins, who calmly threw to first to end the game.

"I was pumped for that last inning," admitted Higgins. "I just wanted to end it right there and not let them get any momentum."

Parkland's state playoff run came to an end Monday with a 5-1 loss to District 2 champ Wyoming Valley West. See next week's Press for more about that game.