After winning the Lehigh Valley Legion championship by beating Whitehall, Salisbury moved into the Region 2 tournament. While the Falcons went undefeated in the Lehigh Valley League tournament, they ran into stiff competition in regionals and were eliminated with losses to Norchester and Nor Gwyn at Owls Field in West Lawn.

In their opener against Norchester, Salisbury fell behind early and was trailing 4-0 going to the top of the fourth inning. With Ken Levy on first and one out, Justin Balliet hit a groundball that should have resulted in an out, but an error by Norchester put runners on first and third for Tim Schware, who hit a groundball to first that resulted in a fielder’s choice and brought Levy home from third with Salisbury’s first run of the game.

Schware had come in to pitch in relief of Nick Bergeman in the bottom of the fourth and threw a perfect inning, not allowing a ball out of the infield. Norchester started to figure out Schware in the fifth and produced single runs in both the fifth and sixth innings to push their lead to 6-1.

As the Falcons had done throughout the Lehigh Valley tournament, they again looked for a late-game rally to turn things around.

Kyle O’Connor took over on the mound, becoming the fourth pitcher of the day for the Bulldogs, looking to close out the win. O’Connor got groundballs to retire the first two hitters in the inning before Thomas Lovelidge singled and Bergeman drew a walk. Levy then singled to short and an error on the play allowed Lovelidge to score and left runners on second and third with two outs. O’Connor worked out of the jam by inducing pop-up to third for the final out of the game with Salisbury on the short end of a 6-2 score.

The loss put Salisbury’s backs against the wall in the double elimination tournament as the Falcons entered day two in the loser’s bracket where they would face Nor Gwyn, who was shut out by NorCo’s Wanderers 4-0 on day one of the tournament.

Salisbury gave up a run in the top of the fourth inning, but looked for a quick comeback when an error and a single put runners on first and second for the Falcons. Both runners would be thrown out attempting to steal to leave the bases empty for Bergeman, who lined out back to starting pitcher Eric Hamilton. In the second, Salisbury again looked to get something started as Levy led off with a single, but Hamilton then recorded two strikeouts and a groundball back to the mound to end the inning without any damage.

The Hawks put up three runs in both the third and fourth innings, taking a commanding 8-0 lead. Meanwhile, Salisbury failed to mount any threats against Hamilton in the third and after setting down the first two batters in the fourth, Hamilton was relieved by Chris LaRosa, who struck out Levy to end the inning. LaRosa turned out to be unhittable as he struck out the side in the fifth and then added a perfect sixth inning, retiring all seven hitters that he faced.

Salisbury avoided trouble in the fifth, but allowed two runs in the sixth. The inning opened with a leadoff triple from Ryan Sullivan, who would later score on a wild pitch. Nor Gwyn then loaded the bases and another wild pitch forced home the final run for the Hawks. The game was ended after six innings because of the ten-run rule.