On Friday afternoon, the Northampton baseball team completed its season Mercy Rule sweep of Bethlehem Catholic with a 16-5 romp on Mike Lisetski Field. The K-Kids blew out the Golden Hawks 15-1 at Coca-Cola Park just 10 days prior.

Despite the seemingly easy win, it was not exactly an immaculate performance by the Kids.

Head coach Mick Sugra provided his assessment, “We faced some adversity there in the beginning. The 5 runs on the board are two walks, a hit by pitch, and two errors. Those are the 5 runs. It bit us against Nazareth (an 8-7 loss on last Wednesday). We came out here botching it around a little again.”

Becahi scored two runs in the top of the first inning and added another in the top of the second to jump out to an unexpected 3-0 lead.

Northampton equalized in the bottom of the second as Gavin Caravello, Tyler Biechy, and Jake Raysely loaded the bases to start the Kids’ half of the inning and came home on a pair of Beca errors and a sac fly by Aiden Sugra.

The floodgates opened up in the bottom of the third. After a leadoff ground out, Caravello picked up another hit, leading to seven straight Kids reaching base. All of them scored. Brady Simock drove in a pair with an RBI single.

The Golden Hawks scored a pair of unearned runs in the top of the fourth to cut the deficit to 10-5.

The bottom of the fourth looked eerily similar to the bottom of the third as the first 8 K-Kids all reached base. Northampton put up 6 runs in the inning with 3 runs coming via bases loaded walks and one on a bases loaded HBP.

For the game, the Kids had 8 hits, all singles, drew 10 walks, and were the beneficiaries of 6 Bethlehem Catholic errors.

Matt Buskirk worked a 1-2-3 top of the fifth to secure the Mercy Rule win.

Jake Raysely got the win, throwing 3 innings with 4 hits allowed, 3 walks, and 3 strikeouts.

As the season approaches its halfway point, Mick Sugra offered his thoughts on the Kids 6-3 start (6-3 in the EPC as well), “Yeah, I’m happy where we’re at, but we gave one away at Liberty and we shouldn’t have given that one away against Nazareth on Wednesday. We’re right there with two of the better teams, but we have to figure out a way to get over the hump and shut the door.”

Sugra continued, “We’ve got four games this week and unfortunately Charlie Burrell, our second-leading RBI guy, dislocated his (non-throwing) shoulder at practice. We might see him as a pitcher later in the season, or he might be done. It’s an opportunity for other guys step up.”