Ben Cordova had been looking forward to Saturday's game against Salisbury for a while. It offered him a chance at redemption.

When Cordova first saw Salisbury in the season opener, the incoming-senior at Lehighton watched as the Chargers gave up an early 4-0 lead and fall 5-4 to the host Falcons. Cordova, who started the game, didn't pick up the loss after allowing two runs in the third inning. He still wanted to leave a better impression this time around.And that he did.Cordova didn't allow a hit until the fifth inning and pitched seven innings of scoreless baseball for Northern Valley, as the Chargers (4-6-1) shut out Salisbury 5-0 (3-6) on Saturday morning at Northern Lehigh High School."These guys had this game circled on the calendar for quite awhile," manager Brad Rauch said. "They wanted to get this one back from earlier. I think he used that.""I was ticked off that we lost that game," Cordova said. "I felt like I had to come back and redeem myself a little bit. This is the perfect time to come do it."Producing timely hitting had been an issue for the Chargers early in the season. During their five-game losing streak to begin the season, Northern Valley scored just nine runs. And four of those came in that season-opening loss to the Falcons.It looked as if that may be an issue on Saturday as well. The Chargers, after scoring a run in the top of the first in large part to three Falcon errors, had plenty of opportunities in the next three innings that went without a run.Northern Valley put their first two batters on base in the second, and there were runners on first and third base with one out in the third. Josh Williamson led off the fourth with a single, but all three innings finished without a run crossing home."Our biggest problem this year is we weren't producing runs," Rauch said. "In the first four games we played, we played 28 innings of baseball and scored six runs. Four of those runs were in the first two innings of the very first game. In 26 consecutive innings of baseball, we only scored two runs."Luckily for the Chargers, that came to a close in the fifth inning. After Dante Salerno's leadoff double down the third base line, Cordova lined a double of his own to break the Chargers' drought. Cordova later scored on a Falcon outfield error during Jordan Storm's single, Storm came around to score moments later on another Falcon error that made it 4-0, and Williamson's groundout tallied another Charger run."I knew it was a 1-0 game and we needed something to get us kick-started, which we have all year," Cordova said. "I was just looking for a pitch I could drive somewhere."Their start to the season wasn't pretty, but Rauch believes his team has turned the corner. The Chargers have won four of their last six gamesNorthern Valley tied Fullerton 5-5 in one of those conteststo right the ship.Following their victory over Salisbury, Northern Valley edged Coplay, 4-3, a few hours later on Saturday afternoon."We have a lot of new guys, probably the most that we've had since I've been here," Rauch said. "Getting them all to jell together and understand my coaching style, it's taking them a little bit. But they're starting to jell a little bit now. We have nine games left, and I think they're jelling at the right time."Salisbury 000 000 0 - 0 3 6Northern Valley 100 040 x - 5 6 0Bishop and Adams; Cordova and Wiik. W - Cordova. L - Bishop.