Throughout the regular season, Lower Macungie and South Parkland had some great battles, so it was no surprise that the Lehigh Valley Legion playoffs came down to those two teams playing for the tournament championship.

It also was no surprise that the two teams had to go to a second game to decide the champion.

Lower Mac had gone through the double elimination tournament without a loss, so South Parkland had to beat them twice to win both the regular season and the tournament championship. The Trojans beat Lower Macungie in the first game by a 7-1 score at Sammy Balliet Stadium in Whitehall. That set up the final game between the two rivals the next night at Parkland High School.

It wasn’t as easy as the score may indicate, but the Mustangs downed Parkland 9-4 to take the tournament championship.

Both teams had already secured a spot in the Region Two tournament, but bragging rights and momentum were driving both teams.

“When we lost, it was like it just fueled the fire,” said Lower Mac’s Ryan Hummell, who had three hits in the final game. “We knew we had to play on their home field, and we just wanted to show them who we are.”

Hummell drove in a run and scored twice in the game. His bases loaded single to left capped a seven-run sixth inning for Lower Macungie.

Hummell was credited with just one RBI, but an error in the outfield allowed the other two runners to score to add to the insurance runs and make it a 9-4 margin.

Hummell also came on to pitch in the bottom of the seventh with a runner on first and two outs.

In an odd turn of events, he never did throw a pitch. With Jaxon Kramer, who had driven in three runs in the game, at the plate, Hummell threw a perfect pickoff throw to first and caught the runner leaning for the final out.

Robbie Barnes had started the inning for Lower Macungie and got the first two outs before surrendering a single. Manager Jeff Smith went to Hummell not out of concern, but to keep Barnes from throwing more pitches, which would have made him unavailable for the regional tournament opener. Barnes would have liked to finish out the game but understood the move.

“It’s alright,” said Barnes, who gave Lower Macungie 2 1/3 innings in relief of starter Cole Moreau. “He (Smith) wanted to keep me ready for this weekend, so it’s OK.”

Moreau threw 4 1/3 innings in the game, giving up just two runs and recording four strikeouts. Offensively, Moreau showed good plate discipline, drawing three walks and scoring on two of them.

The first three hitters in the order – Aaron Fleetwood, Barnes and Cameron Pengelly – combined for six hits, drove in two runs and scored another.

It’s been so long since Lower Macungie won a league tournament that nobody is quite sure when it was. Smith has been leading the team for 12 years now and this was his first time handing out gold medals. The prevailing thought was that the last Lower Macungie championship may have been back in the 1990s.

“We’ve had a lot of good teams over the years that put in a lot of hard work,” said Smith. “A few times I thought we would get here but we never did, so this is exciting. I’m happy for these guys because they all pulled together and all of the credit goes to these guys. They got behind and they could have quit, but they didn’t. This is huge because it gives us momentum going into regionals.”