(EDITOR’S NOTE: Since May of 1999, the Times News Sports Department has featured an On This Date practically every day, highlighting an event that happened in the past. With the coronavirus putting a halt to sports locally and nationally, the On This Dates have been expanded to the stories that actually ran in the next day’s newspaper. Today’s On This Date story is from May 27, 1986).

By Todd Suarez

Sports Staff Writer

Northwestern earned the right to meet Salisbury in the District XI “AA” final on Friday night with their 7-3 “revengeful” victory over Northern Lehigh.

The Tigers and Falcons will collide at 5 p.m. in the opener of a doubleheader at Coplay.

All the Tigers needed was one big inning, and that inning was the fifth when they sent 10 men to the plate and scored six times, breaking a scoreless tie.

Their victory avenges a loss to the Bulldogs last week in the Centennial League championship tilt.

“This is a big revenge win for us,” commented an elated Tiger mentor Lenny Smith, following the game. “These kids came out to play and really wanted this one. This is the greatest bunch of kids I have ever been around, they have never quit and they have a lot of character.”

Through the first four innings, Frank Rauscher and Jeff Hausamann were in the midst of a pitcher’s duel. The latter had allowed his opponents only one hit and three base runners in the first four, while Rauscher had given up only two hits. But that all changed in the fifth when the Tigers finally got to Hausamann and the Bulldogs.

The inning started off innocently enough when on the first pitch Chris Schellhamer flew out to right. However, the next eight batters reached base as the floodgates opened.

Corey Mangold singled to get things started and went to second when a Hausamann pickoff toss went astray. Kevin Reinert walked, and Rob Seyfried blooped a single down the left field line that easily scored Mangold with the first run.

Dave Bettler lashed a hard single to center scoring Reinert, before Rauscher got an infield single. On the hit, Seyfried came around to score and when Hausamann tried to throw Rauscher out at first his throw hit Rauscher and rolled away from first baseman Danny Wanamaker as Bettler crossed the plate.

With the score 4-0, two outs and Danny Wanamaker on for Hausamann, the Bulldogs appeared to be out of the inning. But Northern Lehigh committed a costly error that allowed two more runs to score for the 6-0 lead.

Rauscher just kept rolling along, as he got some fine defensive work to go along with his pitching to keep Northern Lehigh off the board. In the fifth, with one out, Brian Wanamaker rolled a single past second and into right field, but that mild threat was dissolved when Rauscher got Lorne Polansky to ground into a tailor-made 6-4-3 double play.

Rauscher then helped his own cause with a run-scoring single to right in the sixth inning for a 7-0 margin.

In the bottom half of that inning, the Bulldogs scored three times and Rauscher was pulled in favor of Andy McCauley. Cutting the margin to 7-3, the Bulldogs made the game a bit more interesting, but that would be all they could manage.

The inning began when Dale Boyer reached on an error and moved to second on Tim Robb’s line single to left. Delong hit a roller to second, but an anxious shortstop, Seyfried, dropped the flip while covering the bag and all hands were safe. The first two runs of the inning came on bases-loaded walks to Joey Hartner and Hausamann. Danny Wanamaker lofted a sacrifice fly for the other run.

Robb reached base in the seventh, but it was a little too late, as McCauley shut the door down on Northern Lehigh.

“Hey, what can I say,” commented a somewhat disappointed NL head coach Frank Carazo. “We made some fielding mistakes and they played better than us. They’re a good team.”

He added, “When you get down, say 6-0 with two innings left, you aren’t going to win all the time.”

“This was definitely a big win for us,” said Smith, who is in his fourth year as head coach. “After losing to them last Tuesday, which was a heartbreaker, this was a great win. Andy (McCauley) just shut them down the last two innings. He did a super job.”

For the Bulldogs it ends a season that saw them go further than many people expected them to. They captured their third straight CL flag, and finished with a 16-5 mark. Northwestern upped its mark to 16-6.

KIBBLES-N-BITS ... Not only was Rauscher the pitching star, but he went 3-for-4 and sparked many Tiger rallies ... Robb had two hits to lead NL ... Winning hurler Rauscher fanned one and walked one ... McCauley looked sharp in his short stint ... For NL, both Hausamann and Danny Wanamaker had five strikeouts. They combined to walk just four ... Special thanks are in order to Roxy Kistler and Cherie Snyder, NL’s stat girls for helping me throughout the season.

N’western 000 061 0 - 7 7 2

No. Lehigh 000 003 0 - 3 5 3

Rauscher, McCauley (6) and Perich; Hausamann, D. Wanamaker (5) and B. Wanamaker. W - Rauscher. L - Hausamann.