Sometimes, it seems like the more you beat a team, the tougher it gets to keep beating them. That was the case for South Parkland, which won both regular season games against Northern Valley and then beat the Chargers again in the Lehigh Valley Legion League playoffs. Unfortunately for the Trojans, Northern Valley returned and take two straight from the Trojans to win their first LVL Championship since 2011.

“We beat them the first three, and we lost the wrong two,” said South Parkland head coach Tommy Kahn. “That’s baseball though. It’s hard to beat a good team four or five times in a row, that’s for sure.”

South Parkland downed Emmaus and North Parkland to set up their first postseason meeting with the Chargers. With both teams at 2-0, the winner would go through to the championship, and perhaps more importantly, would get a day off while the losing team had to keep playing.

It took a rally, but South Parkland was able to earn its day off with a come-from-behind 7-6 win over Northern Valley last Friday. The win also put South Parkland squarely in the driver’s seat, needing just one win in two possible games against whichever team would emerge from the loser’s bracket.

As it turned out, that team would be Northern Valley, which downed West Allentown 1-0 to advance to the championship against South Parkland.

In the first game, South Parkland held a 2-0 lead and Michael Jenkins seemed to be in charge on the mound. In the sixth inning, an error and a base-hit put runners on first and second with one out for Ben Cordova, who found an open space just to the left of center field and drove the ball to the fence for a two-run triple to tie the score. Moments later, Cordova, who was the losing pitcher in Friday night’s game, scampered home with what would be the winning run after Jenkins unloaded a wild pitch.

When the two teams gathered again on Monday to decide the LVL champion, the game again wound up being a battle, with the Chargers gaining a 4-3 win and a trip to regionals, which begin this weekend in Quakertown. In the loss, this time it was an error that led to Northern Valley scoring two runs that helped put the nail in the coffin for South Parkland.

The Trojans made a late run, hitting a couple balls hard, but right at Northern Valley players.

“The teams are good at this time of year. We made a couple throwing errors that cost us some runs and that really hurt us,” said Kahn. “I thought we were going to score in the last inning but the ball was right at them.”

For the second straight season, South Parkland finished at 17-7 overall. They figure to be strong again next season, with just one key player, Harrison Rabenold, ineligible to return for the 2017 season. Rabenold led the team with 16 RBI and hit .500 (17-for-54) in 18 games this season. On the mound, he posted a 1.94 ERA in four starts for South Parkland.

“It’s going to be hard not writing a Rabenold in the lineup,” admitted Kahn. “I had him and his brother for years and they are two of the best kids I’ve ever had. That’s going to be really tough. Most everybody comes back, except for Harrison.”

Northern Valley advances to the Region Two Tournament, which begins this weekend. The Chargers will face Oley-Topton from the Schuylkill-Berks League in the opener.