PARKLAND - For six innings, it looked like Pleasant Valley was going to pull off an upset in the opening round of the District 11 playoffs against Parkland - then, Mother Nature intervened.

With the Bears up 5-2 in the top of the seventh, the game was delayed for 30 minutes by thunder. When play resumed, Pleasant Valley went down in order, but Parkland put up a three-run bottom of the seventh to tie the game and then went on to take a 6-5 win in extra innings.Pleasant Valley took a 1-0 lead in the second when Kieran Kearns led off the inning with his first of two doubles on the day. After being bunted over to third, Kearns scored when his brother, Brandan Kearns, delivered an RBI ground ball to give the Bears what would be a short-lived lead. Parkland tied the game in the bottom of the inning off starter Nate Coursey, who would wind up cruising pretty easily through six innings of work, until the delay interrupted his momentum."One of the reasons why we picked him to pitch this game was because of his style", said PV coach Charlie Inserra. "He's an off-speed, mix-and-match, location type of pitcher. Being one of the better teams in the league, Parkland probably faces everybody's ace and kids who throw hard and have their best stuff, so my thinking was that he presented the best opportunity to keep them off-balance, which he did."In the third, Pleasant Valley appeared that it would go down without a fight when it had two outs and nobody on base. Then, Matt Pierce, Justin Stasiak and Brent Beck all laced singles. After Stasiak singled and moved Pierce to third, Stasiak stole second, which allowed two runs to score on Beck's hit. A walk, followed by an RBI single from Brett Hardy made it 4-1. Kearns' second double of the day, followed by a walk and a Parkland error, loaded the bases with nobody out in the sixth, and Matt Konopke hit a fly ball to right that was deep enough to score Kearns, pushing Pleasant Valley's lead to 5-1."Was I comfortable at 5-1? I wouldn't say comfortable," said Inserra, who admitted he was worried about the potential for Parkland to take advantage of any opportunities that Pleasant Valley might give them.With Pierce leading off the top of the seventh, umpires heard thunder in the area and instituted a mandatory 30-minute delay. Some rain fell during the delay, but when the 30 minutes were up, the game resumed. Pleasant Valley got a one-out single from Stasiak, but nothing more in the inning and Coursey came out to pitch the bottom of the frame.Inserra's plan was to get Coursey through the first four hitters and pull him if Parkland got back to the top of their order, which he did. Unfortunately, by then, Parkland had the bases loaded with just one out when Hardy moved from shortstop to the mound. Hardy, however, couldn't put an immediate stop to the rally, and before the inning was over, the Trojans had scored three runs to tie the game and force extra innings."5-1 was a nice lead and I liked where we were at, but one thing that any good team is capable of doing at this point in the season is that if you give them an inch, they can take feet," said Inserra. "What we did was exactly what I was hoping we wouldn't do all game ... we gave them way too many walks and an opportunity late in the game."In the eighth, Parkland got a one-out base hit from E.J. Brandt that scored Matt Mellinger, who led off the inning with a walk and was bunted to second.RECORDS ... Pleasant Valley finishes the season 9-12 overall.UP NEXT ... Parkland advances to play Whitehall in the District 11 quarterfinals. That game will be played Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at Whitehall High School.TOP HEAVY ... The top five hitters in the Bears lineup finished the day 7-for-17 (.412), while the bottom four finished 0-for-13.Pleasant Vy. 013 001 00 - 5 7 0Parkland 010 001 31 - 6 9 1Coursey, Hardy (7) and Pandolfo; Giovenco, Duff (6), Smith (8). W - Smith. L - Hardy.