Imagine returning to a place you grew up playing baseball at as a child. Now imagine coaching your son on the same field.

This was the reality Thursday for Pete Balogach, the head coach of West End’s Little League ballclub.

The District 18 11-12 Little League tournament got underway as Franklin Township welcomed West End at Phifer’s Ice Dam Field.

FT struck early and appeared to be en route to a victory, but West End showed impressive resilience to come back and win 12-9.

The victory became a full-circle moment for coach Balogach. Although he’s now coaching within the Pleasant Valley area, he was once a member of Franklin’s Little League team and graduated from Lehighton in 2002.

“This (was) an emotional game for me because this is where I grew up; this is my roots right here,” Balogach said.

“This is where I played Little League Baseball, and to come back here full circle to coach my son in his last year, it just brings back a lot of memories.”

His son Trey was quick to create another memory for his father, as he delivered an RBI groundout to open the scoring in the first.

Franklin responded in the bottom half, stringing five hits to produce four runs for an early 4-1 lead.

FT starting pitcher Bryson Brungard worked around some trouble in the second to preserve the lead and saw his teammates add another run to extend the advantage.

With West End getting hard contact off Brungard, Franklin head coach Mike Snyder elected to go to Jake Kistner on the mound in the third. The plan backfired when West End strung together five runs on four hits and three walks to take a 6-5 lead.

This included RBI doubles from Balogach and Noah Triolo.

“My plan was to keep two pitchers at 35 (pitches) and then kind of go the distance with one,” said coach Snyder about his pitching plan.“I felt like they were hitting off of Brungard pretty good with that velocity, so my plan went to shift to Jake.

“Jake throws a little bit harder and has a slider, but they seemed to be hitting off of him.”

Franklin managed to retake the lead 7-6 in the fourth thanks to an RBI triple from Camden Moyer to tie the score and an RBI infield single by Lawson Troutman to go in front.

This became the beginning of a back-and-forth offensive shootout.

West End punched back with three runs in the fifth, which was immediately followed by two runs from FT in the bottom half to tie the score again.

Lastly, three more runs from West End during the sixth resulted in its third lead of the game. Lukas Wamba had the big hits in the inning, a two-run double.

With one last chance to keep the game going, Franklin loaded the bases in the bottom of the sixth, but a fly out to right preserved the victory for West End.

Coach Balogach’s full-circle moment was as good as he could have asked, not just with a victory, but with his son Trey going 2-for-3 and leading the team with three RBIs on the same field his father grew up playing.

Even then, he emphasized how important it was to see contributions and push back from everyone in the lineup.

“A lot of kids stepped up for us today; it’s not just one (or) two players,” he said. “We were 13 people deep today. It’s so much resilience from our kids. They battle each and every day.

“If you get down three runs, you want to grind. You don’t want to fall down behind that much, but even if you do, you just keep fighting, grinding and staying together as a team.”

THE JOURNEY BEGINS ... West End will travel to Pocono Mountain East on Saturday for its next matchup in the winner’s bracket. Franklin Township awaits the loser of East Stroudsburg and Stroudsburg for its next game on Monday.

West End 105 033 - 12 13 2

Franklin Township 410 220 - 9 11 3

Moore, Grando (4), E. Bower (6) and Kresge; Bryson Brungard, Kistner (3), Kuhns (4) and Snyder, Bryson Brungard (5). W - Grando. L - Kuhns.