North Parkland’s hopes for a return trip to regionals were dashed by a loss to West Allentown, giving the Buffaloes their second loss in the double-elimination playoffs for the Lehigh Valley Legion League championship.

The Buffaloes, who came into the playoffs as the number-three seed, won their first-round game against Lower Macungie, but then lost to rival South Parkland, sending them into the loser’s bracket and the meeting with West Allentown.

The Buffaloes finished the regular season at 11-7.

North Parkland started off its run with a 2-1 win over Lower Macungie, sparked by a perfectly executed squeeze bunt by Colin Calpin to give Parkland their 2-1 edge.

Earlier in the game, Justin Afflerbach, who collected two hits, tripled and drove in a run to tie the game after Lower Mac had taken a 1-0 lead in the top of the third. Braeden Duff threw a complete game for North Parkland and got the win.

North Parkland couldn’t generate too much offense against South Parkland in its second-round game and fell 6-3 and the trend continued with a 6-2 loss to West Allentown, which eliminated the Buffs from the playoffs.

“We didn’t get hits at the right time,” said coach Terry Stoudt. “We had a good season, but then in the playoffs, nobody really stepped up for us and we lost to some good teams.”

All season, North Parkland couldn’t seem to get its offense and pitching to peak at the same time. When the Buffaloes got hitting – they scored eight or more runs six times – they couldn’t get pitching. And when the pitching was on – they held teams to three runs or less five times – their offense wasn’t clicking.

On the season, North Parkland outscored its opponents 108-97.

“We had offense,” said Stoudt. “We scored a lot of runs at times, but then we’d have games where we just didn’t hit or didn’t hit enough. Same with our pitching, we had good pitchers, but there were some games where we got hit around.”

As a team, Parkland hit .330 with a 2.79 ERA on the season. Evan McAndrew (3-3, 1.88) and Duff (4-2, 3.39) led the team’s pitchers. On offense, McAndrew hit .414 and led the team with 17 RBI. Afflerbach drove in 15 runs and hit .338 for North Parkland.