North East falls to Fallston in region final

ABERDEEN — Close to 24 hours separated the second and third outs of the Class 2A East Region Final’s third inning between North East and Fallston.

After playing 3 2/3 innings on Tuesday at Fallston High School and the Cougars holding a 4-1 lead, the game was suspended due to inclement conditions. It picked back up Wednesday at the Ripken Complex in Aberdeen. Out of the suspension of play, the Cougars drove in five more runs across the remaining innings to capture their second straight region title.

“From the time that the game was suspended it was just positivity, having positive thoughts and confidence that we come to this field and if we play our game, we have a chance to fight back and possibility take the lead,” North East head coach Kevin Brown said. “It didn’t happen and that is the way the ball bounces sometimes.”

Holding a four-run lead, Fallston broke the game open in the bottom of the sixth on a bases-clearing double from Zach Stromberger to extend the lead to seven. Fallston used sacrifice flies from Paul Kvech in the fourth and Zach Loewe in the fifth to grow its lead to five out of the resumption. The Cougars scored four of its nine runs on sacrifice flies across both days. Nate Slicher tied the game at one on Tuesday with a sacrifice in Fallston’s first appearance at the plate. Drew Rommel used a sac fly to center in the third to extend the Cougars’ advantage to two.

After three-up, three-down innings in the top half of the fourth and fifth, a double to right field by North East’s Ethan Flaugher put runners on second and third with one out. A sac fly from Luke Keefer on the following at-bat drove in a run and put the Indians within four. The Cougars escaped the inning on an ensuing groundout. Keefer finished with two RBIs. The North East senior gave his team an early lead in Tuesday’s afternoon session on an RBI double that scored Evan England.

North East finishes the year with an overall record of 13-7. The Indians will graduate seven seniors, five of which played all four years. Those five seniors include Keefer, Flaugher, England, Ryan James and Colby Barlok.

“I’m pretty sure there weren’t any five players that were starters through the entire tenure that they were here,” Brown recalled of his 31 years coaching at North East. “So I have enormous amount of feeling for them, I can’t say enough about what they accomplished in the four years of when they were here in terms of wins on the field. It’s just a shame we’ve come up short a few times in terms of trying to get where we ultimately wanted to get.”