Freemansburg advances to Norco Legion final; Nazareth and Bath must play deciding game

Greg Taylor delivered an RBI single in the bottom of the seventh inning as Freemansburg completed the Norco Legion semifinal sweep of top-seeded Northampton with a 7-6 victory.

Freemansburg now will await the winner of the Nazareth-Bath series. The teams are deadlocked 1-1 in the best-of-three after Bath knotted the semifinals with a 12-5 home win.

Leadoff hitter Dre Haller singled three times and scored three runs while setting the table for manager Dave Brong's club.

"I try to get on base and let everyone else hit me in," said Haller, who'll be a senior at Liberty High School. "When I get on base, good things happen. I'm not going to hit the ball far. That's what the people behind me are for."

Bath will travel to Nazareth Borough park to determine the other Norco finalist at 1 p.m. on Saturday -- weather permitting.

NAZARETH (ab-r-h-bi) -- Garzillo ss 2-2-1-0, Peppel p 3-1-1-2, Dauscher dh/1b 3-0-0-0, King 1b/3b 2-0-0-1, Keglovits 3b 2-0-0-0, Mulhearn cf 3-0-0-0, Magditch lf 0-1-0-0, Elliott c 2-1-1-1, Ryan 2b 2-0-0-1, Carhart rf 2-0-0-0, Kleiner ph 1-0-0-0. Totals 22-5-3-5.

BATH (ab-r-h-bi) -- Haller cf 4-3-3-2, Longernecker ss 4-0-1-1, T. Brong 1b 5-0-2-2, Lule c 2-2-1-0, J. Bertolotti lf 4-2-2-1, Black 2b 4-1-3-1, Allman rf 3-1-0-1, Weiss 3b 3-2-2-2, Sawyer p 1-1-0-0, R. Brong 1-0-0-0. Totals 31-12-14-10.

Nazareth (16-6) 000 221 0-- 5 3 6
Bath (14-9) 130 305 x--12 14 1

DP -- Bath. LOB -- Nazareth 3; Bath 8. 2B -- Garzillo, Peppel; Lule, J. Bertolotti, Black. 3B -- Elliott; Weiss. SF -- King. SB -- Garzillo, Magditch; T. Brong 3, Haller, Allman. CS -- Longernecker, T. Brong, Justin Glose.
Peppel and Elliott; Sawyer, Caccamo (7), Haller (7) and Lule. W -- Sawyer. SO-BB -- Peppel 0-6; Sawyer 6-4, Caccamo 0-2, Haller 1-0. HPB -- by Peppel (Lule).

Northampton 011 112 0--6 7 0
Freemansburg 000 312 1--7 12 1

2B -- Schwartz, Schmidt, Helm (N); Goldoni, Archer, Taylor (F). HR -- Dalla-Piazza (F). RBI -- Fenon 2, Bodnar, Schwartz, Helm, Diclemente (N); Taylor 2, Dalla-Piazza 2, Slanovec 2, Goldoni (F).
Schmidt, Helm (6) and Yost. Kaneps, Boger (5), Johnson (7) and Snyder. W -- Johnson. L -- Helm. SO-BB -- Schmidt 1-1, Helm 1-2; Kaneps 0-2, Boger 0-2, Johnson 0-0.
Records: Northampton 17-5; Freemansburg 15-8-1.

Express Times