For four innings during Monday night’s EPC softball semifinal, Whitehall seemed on the verge of refuting the old sports cliché that it is hard to beat the same team three times in a season.

The Zephyrs led Northampton 5-0. Haley Bartosh had escaped a second and third with one out jam in the first inning and had held the K-Kids to just two singles at the plate.

The momentum began to shift in the fifth inning as the top of the Northampton order loaded the bases for Nicole Yellen, who has been on a tear the entire month of May. The senior delivered a single to left that plated Hannah Makovsky and Avery Deibert. Two batters later, freshman third baseman Ro Echevarria delivered a 2-run single of her own to cut the margin to one run, 5-4.

After Nya Brown scored on a Jess Spanitz fielder’s choice in the bottom of the sixth to put Whitehall up 6-4, it felt like the Zephyrs had weathered the storm. They were three outs away from advancing to the championship game.

Echevarria led off the top of the final inning with a single. After a Northampton foul out came perhaps the turning point of the game. Echevarria was ruled safe at second on a fielder’s choice on what could have been the second out of the inning. Three consecutive K-Kids’ hits followed: an RBI single by Ryley Colburn, Makovsky’s fourth hit of the game, a single that drove in Sam Barber, and a 2-run double by Deibert to the fence in right field. Yellen added another RBI to her total with a 2-out single to make the score 9-6.

Whitehall was able to get two runners aboard with one out in the bottom of the seventh, but Emma Fraley shut the door with a pair of strikeouts.

Deibert, a freshman first baseman, discussed her at bat that resulted in the game-winning runs, “I always make sure that I’m smart in there and I’m not swinging at anything bad. I knew that we needed runs, so I did what I needed to do. I got a low pitch and I love that low pitch. It felt good coming off the bat.”

The offensive standouts for the Zephyrs were: Aubrey Steiner who was 2 for 3 with a double and 2 RBIs, Kate Yadush – 2 for 4 with an RBI and a run scored, and Spanitz – 2 for 3 with and RBI and a run.

Whitehall head coach Jeff Vivian offered these thoughts after the game, “Northampton had some things that went their way and sometimes the softball gods smile on another team, and we didn’t get many smiles today, but I’m proud the way we competed and fought. We just took our foot off the gas a little bit and that opened the door for them. Hats off to them.”

The Zephyrs will be back in action on Friday May 26 in the District XI 5A playoffs as the top seed playing against East Stroudsburg South in the semifinals. The game will be at a neutral site, but the time and place have not yet been announced.

Northampton moves on to play Nazareth for the EPC title tonight at Pates Park in Allentown at 7 pm. The K-Kids are making a third straight trip to the conference championship game but are still seeking their first league crown since the formation of the EPC. Northampton beat the Blue Eagles 5-0 on April 19, but Nazareth is 8-1 since then.

Northampton head coach Kristy Henritzy discussed her team’s motivation around winning the league title, “It’s the excitement of accomplishing that task, that mountain, that goal, that we haven’t done recently. I know they want it really bad. They talk about making it their claim to fame, their mark on history.”