With the final weeks of the season upon them, Catasauqua’s baseball team has its sights on qualifying for the Class 3A district playoffs.

As of Wednesday morning, the Rough Riders were in the fifth place in the bracket with an overall 5-7 record. The top four teams will qualify and then teams with a .500 or better mark in the league as well. They had eight games remaining beginning with Southern Lehigh Wednesday.

However, the Roughies were dealt a potential major blow when they dropped an 8-0 decision to Salisbury Monday, a team that entered the game with an 11-game losing streak.

Catty starter Brandon Jenny and Salisbury starter Tim Schware were both locked in a simultaneous no-hitter bid through the first four innings. Jenny went five innings and had six strikeouts in his 97-pitch effort, 52 of them strikes. Bryann Rivera worked the final two innings.

However, Salisbury broke through in the fifth with a three-run rally that began with a throwing error to first. Salisbury (4-11) sealed the victory with a five-run sixth.

The Roughies had two men on in the bottom of the inning, but they failed to score. They finished the afternoon with two hits.

“It was a very tight game through five innings then an error and walks opened the floodgates,” said Roughies’ head coach Steve Bradley. “We were flat at the bat. Two hits isn’t good enough in tight games.”

“We didn’t execute some bunts early that might have made a difference.”

The Roughies were coming off an impressive 10-2 victory at Notre Dame East Stroudsburg a few days earlier.

Cole Schiffer had two hits for the Roughies, who stole 11 bases and took advantage of six errors. Schiffer is the team’s leading hitter with a .432 mark.

McKay Lewis went the distance in a 106-pitch performance, allowing six hits with seven strikeouts. Lewis threw 67 strikes.

Bradley is confident his team can bounce back and make a district run, Catty hasn’t appeared in a district playoff game since 2017 when they lost an 8-0 decision to Tamaqua.

“Practice will wake up the team,” he said. “We will bounce back.”