After missing out on the 2025 postseason, the first absence in Mick Sugra’s 15-year tenure as Northampton’s head baseball coach, the mantra heading into 2026 was, “Just Win 10 Games.”

The Konkrete Kids achieved that mark 13 games into this year’s schedule with a 4-0 victory over North Pocono Saturday afternoon on Mike Lisetski Field.

Senior captain Aidan Sugra described the turnaround from the team that went 8-12 last year, “It was bad for the whole team, but we were able to move on from it. We got into the offseason and focused on this season and it’s paid off. It feels awesome to clinch districts. We’ve just been on a roll.”

Brady Simock starred on the hill, flirting with a no-hitter. His only blemishes over the first 5.2 innings were a couple of batters hit by pitches, one of whom was erased on a pick-off at first. The bid for history died on a little flair into shallow right field that landed just out of the reach of diving second baseman Brayden Giandomenico. Combined with the 4.1 hitless innings he threw against Whitehall in his previous start in a 11-0 Mercy Rule win versus the Zephyrs, Simock had 10 straight hitless innings.

He finished the game surrendering a pair of singles and no walks to go with 7 strikeouts.

Simock spoke about his gem on the mound, “I’m never really thinking about how many hits I have. I’m focusing on throwing strikes, which I did well today, minus the 2 hit by pitches. I’d just come back in the dugout and refocus every inning.”

His counterpart on the Trojans almost matched him. In the bottom of the first, Casey Williams reached on a leadoff error and advanced all the way to third on a wild pitch. The K-Kids executed a perfect safety squeeze with Aidan Sugra to bring home the run and reach first safely to post a 1-0 lead. Sugra doubled in the third inning, but those were the only two hits for Northampton over the first five innings.

“Props to Brady for throwing an awesome game today,” said head coach Mick Sugra. “We didn’t expect this to be a low-scoring affair today but getting that run early factored in big time. We sat at one (run) for a while but it was good to be in a close game like that and have the pressure on them a little bit.”

The Kids broke the game open in the bottom of the sixth. Gavin Caravello singled up the middle to bring home Giandomenico and two batters later, Jake Raysely singled to drive in Caravello and Tyler Biechy.

Combined with Northampton’s 14-1 win against PM East, the K-Kids head into the final week and half of the regular season at 11-3 overall and 8-3 in the EPC. Over the next week, they get a chance to avenge two of their losses. On Friday, they host Liberty (a 13-12 loss in March) and on Tuesday they travel to Nazareth (8-7 15 days ago). The regular season wraps up May 4.