With just a week left in the Lehigh Valley Legion Baseball League season, now is not the time to be putting out subpar efforts.

For Northern Valley, the last two games have been “absolutely horrendous,” according to head coach Ben Schaffer, who is looking for a return to form to how the team played earlier in the season.

Northern Valley’s last two games have been an 11-4 loss to South Parkland and on Tuesday, the Chargers suffered an 8-0 loss to Lower Macungie, a team that is hitting its stride at just the right time.

“Our last two games have been absolutely horrendous defensively and offensively,” said Schaffer. “ Most of the year our pitching and defense had been an absolute bright spot, but you would never tell that from the last two games.”

The good news is that Northern Valley was credited with a win after a game against Southern Lehigh was forfeited when the Spartans had to pull out of the league.

Northern also gets credit for two more wins for games that were scheduled but yet to be played against Southern Lehigh this weekend.

Against South Parkland, the Chargers trailed 4-0 going to the bottom of the fourth inning.

Cole Dynda had been hit by a pitch earlier in the inning, moved to second with a stolen base and took third on a wild pitch. On an attempted double steal, Dynda dashed home from third to score the first run of the game for Northern Valley.

The Trojans burst out for seven runs in the fifth to make it 11-1.

The Chargers bounced back with three runs in the bottom of the inning, starting with an RBI single from Max George, who then advanced to second on a walk to Griffin Unrath that loaded the bases. A pair of groundouts allowed Carter Christman and George to score and cut the lead to 11-4. The final two innings would be wiped out by rain that plagued the Lehigh Valley last week.

“The rain took away a lot of our time to work on things,” said Schaffer. “But you can’t make excuses because the rest of the teams were in the same situation and they’re hitting the ball. We have a ton of good hitters on this team, but a lot of them aren’t putting the work in with the wood bats right now, and they need to. It’s a big difference and a big, big jump and a lot of them are still swinging their metal on the weekend, so it’s a tough transition.”

In Tuesday’s loss to Lower Macungie, the pitching was the best part of the game for Northern Valley as three pitchers scattered eight hits over seven innings.

The three errors committed by the team led to four unearned runs and the offense collected just six hits.

Then, there were mental errors including two players picked off first base by starter Ryan Hummel. The result was an 8-0 loss to Lower Macungie, a team that recently handed South Parkland its first loss of the Lehigh Valley Legion League season.

The Chargers fell behind early when two walks and an error in the first inning put Northern Valley down 2-0 with Cole Dynda on the mound. Dynda quickly rebounded and retired the Mustangs in order in the second before they slowly started to pull away.

A two-out RBI double in the third made it 3-0 and an error and two singles made it 4-0 through four innings of play. Hummel allowed some base runners here and there but limited the damage by getting key outs or picking a runner off first base.

Things really started to get away from the Chargers in the fifth when Aaron Fleetwood walked to open the inning and stole second.

Another Northern Valley error allowed Fleetwood to score and one out later Hummel singled on a pop-fly that fell among three players, leaving runners on first and third. Dayne Schmidt doubled to right to bring in one run and a sacrifice fly made it 7-0 in favor of Lower Mac.

Hummel defied the hot temperatures and breezed through the fifth. His offense added a final run in the top of the sixth to give the Mustangs an 8-0 advantage.

The Chargers got a leadoff single in the sixth, but the next three batters went down in order.

In the seventh, Northern Valley did mount its best scoring opportunity of the game when with one out Chris Vargas reached on an error and Braedon Dougherty was hit by a pitch to put runners on first and second. Hummell regained control to get the second out on a fly ball and then end the game with a strikeout.

“They came in hot and wanted to play,” said Schaffer. “We were not ready. The heat definitely got to us and beat us today. Attitude wise and physically wise, we also were not ready, and they played a heck of a ball game.”

Catcher Brayden Buskirk collected two hits to lead the Northern Valley offense.