Baseball is a funny sport.

Sometimes, things just don’t go your way. Other times, they do.

It was a beautiful Thursday evening at Christman Field where the Franklin Township Junior Connie Mack baseball squad rematched against South Parkland in playoff action.

Suffering a 9-5 defeat at the hands of the Trojans earlier in the season, Franklin looked to prevent the same result when it mattered most.

Despite trailing 4-0 with nothing going in its favor, FT didn’t back down and mounted a late comeback to walk off Parkland with a 5-4 victory.

Alex Kish found himself in early trouble on the mound for Franklin, as the Trojans worked counts and forced Kish to battle through numerous jams. Despite allowing six walks in the first two innings, and 10 of the first 11 Trojan batters seeing 3-ball counts, Kish managed to escape through three frames while only allowing one run on a steal of home.

“Kish struggled a little bit there in those first couple innings, but it didn’t show on the scoreboard,” said FT head coach Ben Moyer. “He was able to persevere by not letting them put runs on the board. He was able to find a way out of it, and that was huge because we could have been down a lot real quick in the beginning of that game.”

Franklin’s early at-bats saw the opposite from Parkland, as its players were swinging early and often — which Moyer often preaches to his team.

While contact was solid, the results were not.

Hard lineouts, and unlucky double plays, highlighted what was appearing to be telltale signs of a game that simply wasn’t going to go Franklin’s way.

Trailing 1-0, Korbin Ahner stepped up on the mound in relief and gave FT some much needed momentum, going four full with six strikeouts. However, that didn’t mean the bad breaks were over.

With two outs in the top of the fifth, a risky steal of third by South Parkland’s Jack Campbell kept the inning alive — much to the dismay of Franklin fans. This was immediately followed by a two-run single from Connor Hamilton, and an RBI single by Bastian Wuerstle to expand the Trojan advantage to 4-0.

After going scoreless through four frames, the host team finally got a break that went in their favor.

Brock Atwood smashed a two-run single that Parkland thought may have hit a base runner, but the hit stood. Ahner followed with an RBI ground out that made it 4-3. The score remained that way until the bottom of the seventh when Franklin came out looking like it wouldn’t be denied.

A leadoff walk to Jake Albert, a single from Atwood, and a sacrifice fly by Ahner tied the score, before a walk-off RBI-single by Carter Spotts saw FT pull victory from the jaws of defeat.

While disappointed with the loss, South Parkland coach Justin Godusky kept things simple with his view on how the game turned out.

“Baseball is this back-and-forth game, and sometimes calls go your way, sometimes they don’t,” he said. “And it happens to every team, it happens to every umpire and happens to every coach and player. So one of the things about baseball is it’s a failure sport. So learning to deal with those ebbs and flows is part of being a baseball player.

“Full disclosure, there’s two great teams playing here. It was a great game. Congratulations to Franklin, and hope they make a nice run.”

For Franklin, Moyer was extremely impressed with his defense, and hopes that it continues to improve as his team progresses through the playoffs.

“I think we had seven or eight errors the first time we played (South Parkland), and you’re not going to win baseball games playing like that,” said Moyer. “This time we had zero, so it really turned the tide. We’re always looking to improve fielding wise. We need to get better holding runners when they’re on base, and need to get better at putting the ball in play in certain spots.”

NEXT UP … Franklin Township will face Lehigh Township on Monday evening at Bryfogle Park in its next playoff outing.

South Parkland 100 030 0 - 4 3 2

Franklin Township 000 030 2 - 5 7 0

Sedora, Bowser (7) and Bowser, Godusky (7); Kish, Ahner (4) and Atwood. W - Ahner. L - Bowser.

Records: South Parkland (13-6); Franklin Township (15-4).