Throughout the Lehigh Valley Legion regular season schedule, North Parkland just kept hanging around and picking up wins.

South Parkland may have won the regular season title, but many coaches talked about just how good North Parkland was.

The Buffaloes opened the LVL tournament with a win over Lower Macungie in the opening round and stayed in the winner’s bracket with a win over rival South Parkland in their next game.

For North Parkland, the middle innings were a struggle, but thanks to four early runs and a big seventh inning, they picked up an 8-6 win that would make them the final team without a loss in the tournament.

The Buffs put runners on first and third with two outs in the top of the first. Leo Dauberman and Gavin Mohry delivered back-to-back RBI singles to put North Parkland up 2-0 before South Parkland starter Sawyer Marsteller was able to get the final out of the inning.

North Parkland took advantage of an inning-opening error by South Parkland in the second to double its lead. The error and a walk put runners on first and second and Tsubasa Magota bunted the runners over.

One out later, starting pitcher Nate Unger helped himself with a double to center that brought home both runners for a 4-0 lead.

South Parkland got to Unger in the bottom of the fourth with the first six hitters in the order reaching base to make it 4-3. Steven Sepko came on to pitch and got a double play ground ball, but another run scored to tie the game 4-4.

It wouldn’t be until the top of the seventh that the Buffaloes would snap the tie with a four-run inning. With bases loaded and two outs, Brody Morabito tripled on a line drive to center to empty the bases and put the Buffaloes up 7-4. Morabito scored an insurance run on a wild pitch to make it a four-run lead for North Parkland.

Magota came on to pitch the seventh and appeared to have closed out the game. However, with a runner on first and two outs, Grant Damweber grounded to third.

An error got Damweber to first and Connor Gerhart moved him to third on the play. Jack Streeter followed with an RBI single and Magota hit a batter with a pitch to load the bases with North Parkland still holding an 8-5 lead. Dauberman came on to pitch and walked the first batter he saw to make it 8-6 but avoided further damage with a ground ball to short to get the save while Sepko got the win for North Parkland.

Beating their rivals put the Buffs into the tournament finals while South Parkland needed to beat Northern Valley in an elimination game to get to the finals. The Trojans won that game to set up the all Parkland final.