The Northern Valley legion baseball team finished off the regular season with a win over Southern Lehigh Sunday.

Trailing 4-3 and down to their final two outs, the Tigers rallied for two runs on a sacrifice fly to left field in the top of the seventh inning, and held the Spartans scoreless in the bottom half of the frame to complete the comeback 5-4 victory last Sunday night against Southern Lehigh at Limeport Stadium in both teams’ Lehigh Valley Legion regular season finale.

It was the fourth win in a row for Northern Valley, which finished the season 14-3, one game behind Salisbury for the regular season title.

“I told the guys after the game that it’s great to end the season 14-3, but we still have to keep improving,” said Charger head coach Brad Rauch. “If you’re complacent and satisfied with where you are, then eventually it’s going to catch up to you. We just have to keep focused and pushing forward. Drew White pitched a great game and really locked in after the second inning. That was big for us.”

The Spartans jumped in front in the bottom of the second inning, scoring four runs on five hits, including two infield singles to lead off the inning.

Northern Valley tallied a run in each of the next two innings, highlighted by RBI’s from Tyler King and Ben Cordova.

Then in the top of the sixth, Evan Meixell had an RBI single bring home Tyler Wiik to cut the lead to 4-3.

“The guys just kept fighting,” Rauch said. “It was big for us to bounce back like we did, but I told Southern Lehigh after the game that I didn’t want to see them in the playoffs.

“They are a tough team, never mind their record (1-16). That 4-0 score might have been the biggest deficit we’ve faced all year. We chipped away one run at a time, and then to get those two big runs in the seventh was huge.”

In the top of the seventh inning, Jacob Haas reached on an infield single with one out and King was hit by a pitch to put two runners on base. Trevor Schreiner got on base thanks to a Spartans error to load the bases.

Tyler Schreiner hit a fly ball to left field, which looked like a game-tying hit. But as the throw came home from the left fielder, it sailed wide of the plate all the way to the backstop.

King was rounding third and when he saw the ball skip away, raced home and slid in to beat the throw and give the Tigers the lead for the first time.

“I was sending him before he was even at third base,” said Rauch. “During that pitching change I talked to both runners and told them to be ready to tag on any ball hit to the outfield. When I saw the throw going in wide, I knew we had a chance so I sent him.

“Fortunately for us it worked out in our favor and the ball kicked to the backstop. I had it in my head that he was going as soon as he rounded third.”

White sat down the Spartans in order in the bottom of the seventh, and finished off the complete game win.

The Chargers advance into this week’s league tournament at the No. 2 seed and will begin play Thursday in hopes of returning to the Region 2 Tournament for the second straight season.

Salisbury earned one of the league’s two berths into regionals by winning the regular season crown.

The tournament champ will also advance to regionals, unless Salisbury wins the tournament title, in which case the tournament runner-up will get the Lehigh Valley League’s second bid.