The fate of the Northampton-Catasauqua football game wasn’t the only earthshaking event in the Konkrete Kids’ sports world.

Northampton’s baseball team had one of seismic proportions.

It became official last week that the Kids would miss the District 11 Class 6A playoffs for the first time since 2011.

Northampton began the week with an overall 7-12 record, and they hosted Bethlehem Catholic in a game moved to Wednesday. The Kids lost seven of their last eight down the stretch.

Head coach Mick Sugra, who took over the program in 2011, assumed responsibility for the decline.

“They (players) took it about as good as they could have,” deadpanned Sugra. “I told them it’s on me, not on them. They put in the work all fall, all winter, and they gave their best effort. I had to do better.”

Sugra knew his club had some hurdles to overcome, but he understood the responsibilities.

“We had the deck stacked against us with injuries and the strength of schedule, etc.,” he added. “But those are excuses. At the end of the day, players get credit for success because they’re the ones playing the game and putting in the work. The head coach takes responsibility for failure. I have to do a better job to get our guys to go to another level. I live and breathe Northampton baseball 24/7/365. I do not take this lightly. This is on me.”

Seniors Austin Sommers and Tommy Hensel viewed it as being surreal.

“Missing districts is not a good feeling, and I never thought it was a possibility coming into this season,” reflected Sommers. “I really think the main thing was our pitching. We lost a lot of pitchers coming into this year so we had a small rotation of guys to use and games that we had to throw more than two pitchers really threw off the other games we had coming up.

“The bats did go pretty cold, but we had a lot of games versus good pitchers where we put up runs and still weren’t able to win. As a senior, it’s an even worse feeling because this is my last year of high school baseball and it did not go the way I had imagined. It is also a complete different feeling knowing that senior night is going to be my last game, and it is a little odd knowing when your season is going to be over.”

Hensel could also sense the shock.

“It’s extremely difficult knowing we won’t have the opportunity to play for a championship,” stressed Hensel. “It’s a situation that I’m not familiar with. We had high expectations coming in this year and we couldn’t fulfill them.

“Our biggest problem this year were pitching and lack of timely hitting. We weren’t throwing enough strikes, and we were putting too many runners on base. We played a very difficult schedule this year, so there wasn’t much room for error. Being a senior, it hits a little harder. Knowing the next game I play is going to be my last is a difficult thing to swallow. As of now, I will not be playing in college so this is the end of the road.”

Like his players, Sugra also personally felt the loss. However, he is confident his club will get back on track. The Kids joined Liberty, Emmaus, and Parkland being the only teams to not miss the postseason over the last 14 years.

“It’s the toughest by far. Like I said, I live this 24/7/365, and when I do something it’s 100-percent all in. I took great pride in that stat of qualifying every year.

“One of the words I use a lot with our guys is consistency. So, this hurts breaking that consistency. We were in pretty elite company there for a long time.

“But we’ll get back to the drawing board, and back to work. We’ll get back there.”