The Northern Valley offense has been like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces from the offense missing for most of the season.

Just when it looked like those pieces were lost, the whole picture came into view Monday night as the Chargers scored a season-high nine runs to beat Whitehall-Coplay in the opening round of the Lehigh Valley Legion playoffs.

Tuesday night, most of the pieces were there, but NV did not get a big hit in key spots, which led to a 2-1 loss against top seed South Parkland.

Monday night, Connor Simms provided the big hit at just the right time when he singled to right with the bases loaded. Good base running on the play allowed all three runners to score to give the Chargers an 8-2 lead as they put up five runs in the bottom of the fourth inning.

Earlier in the inning, Cole Dynda drove in a run with a double and Parker Schaffer delivered an RBI single.

Simms had driven in a run an inning earlier on a fielder’s choice and Nolan Fitzgerald worked a bases-loaded walk to plate another run. A wild pitch with the bases loaded scored the first run of the game in the bottom of the second inning.

The pitching was strong as Simms allowed three runs over 5 1/3 innings before giving way to Dynda, who got the final five outs of the game.

Tuesday night, the Chargers and South Parkland dodged a pretty substantial storm that hit parts of the Lehigh Valley. After waiting for nearly an hour-and-a-half, the two teams were able to take the field.

It was the Trojans’ opening game in the double elimination tournament after a first-round bye.

The field at Parkland High School was in good shape and while there were some spurts of light rain, the teams didn’t seem to mind.

Dynda started for Northern Valley and Mack Parsell got the call for the Trojans. The pair battled each other through four scoreless innings before the Chargers put a run on the board in the fifth.

Fitzgerald opened the inning with a double to left and moved to third on a ground ball. From there, Aidan Freeman dropped a sacrifice bunt that allowed Fitzgerald to score for a 1-0 lead.

The run marked just the third time this season that South Parkland has trailed in a game. The other two games ended in losses to Lower Macungie.

In the bottom of the inning, Dynda had to settle in when the Trojans loaded the bases with no outs. The first out came on a fly ball to right that wasn’t deep enough to score a run and then an infield fly rule pop up became the second out. Dynda ended the inning with a fly ball to right to strand all three runners and keep the Chargers on top.

“Our pitching has been phenomenal this season and has kept us in games where our offense just wasn’t coming through,” said NV head coach Ben Schaffer. “Dynda did a great job in that inning, and I think that it fired us up, but we just couldn’t get that big hit when we needed it.”

An inning later, Dynda again was in some trouble. A hit batter and a stolen base put a runner on second and what was supposed to be a sacrifice bunt turned into a single with runners now on first and third and nobody out. Dynda recorded a strikeout before Grant Damweber hit a fly ball to center that allowed a run to score and tie the game 1-1.

In the bottom of the seventh, Julian Santiago, the ninth hitter in the Trojan lineup, led off the inning with a double and ended the night for Dynda, who was at 99 pitches.

Parker Schaffer came on in relief and Parkland again looked to move the runner with a sacrifice bunt, which was again turned into an infield single that put runners on first and third with no outs. In an otherwise cleanly played game, the first pitch to Brady Derr was wild and allowed Santiago to score the winning run as he raced home from third.

“We have started to hit the past couple of games, but we haven’t been able to bunch the hits or get that one big hit when we need it most,” said Ben Schaffer, who is in his first year as the team’s head coach. “We have been barreling up the ball much better than we did early on and it’s almost like we are a completely different team when we can do that. We are much more confident, and I have to hand it to the guys for bringing it all together when we need it here at the end of the season.”

Northern Valley will face the winner of Wednesday night’s Lower Macungie and Whitehall-Coplay elimination game, which will be played at Church Lane. The game was scheduled to follow the Northern Valley game at Parkland on Tuesday, but limitations on how late the lights may be on made it impossible to play the game on Tuesday.

“We’re not out of this thing and I think the guys know that,” said coach Schaffer. “We can beat some of these teams and we gave South Parkland a bit of a scare tonight, and they’re a really good team, so we’re not out of it yet.”