You can label the Tri-County League semifinal battle between the Northern Yankees and Volpe's Limeport Bulls "The Door Knocker" Series.

 

That's because both teams have been knocking on the door of a Tri-Co title for years.

The Yankees were runners-up to Gabelsville in 2008 and '09, while Volpe's finished second last year.

 

Volpe's features a number of players from the former Fleetwings franchise, a team that never missed the playoffs in a decade, but never won a title either despite several trips to the finals.

 

The Yankees and Bulls are determined to break through, and the Yankees took the first step toward accomplishing that goal with a 3-1, Game 1 win on Saturday night at Scherersville.

The best-of-five series resumes at 7 Sunday at Limeport, and you can expect another tight, tough battle.

"I anticipated a good game tonight and I think it's going to be a good series," Yankees manager Brian Polaha said. "We definitely want [a title]. We felt we've had the talent to win a championship for several years. We've been to the playoffs every year and had the talent, but just didn't play well. Again, we're geared up, ready to go and focused on doing well."

The Yankees, who finished as the No. 2 seed with a 23-9 regular season record, figure to have a great shot every time left-hander Dave Behler takes the mound. He was the Game 1 winner.

The Lehighton product was 7-0 during the regular season with four shutouts, a 0.98 ERA and 45 strikeouts in 43 innings.

One of the highlights of his season was a shutout win at Limeport.

He didn't have his best stuff on Saturday in walking four and allowing four hits — three to Volpe's veteran Jeremy Arner.

"I tried to battle as best I could," Behler said. "I worked out of a couple of tough spots and a win is a win. I was looking forward to this game. The playoffs bump up the intensity and I know that Limeport said that they didn't have all of their guys when I faced them earlier. But I think they did tonight."

Limeport's Adam Maini, an Emmaus High product, was just as effective for the Bulls, who finished third in the regular season with a 19-13 record.

However, two walks, three errors and a wild pitch all contributed to a three-run third inning that turned the game around.

"This was a tough loss because you hate to waste a good pitching performance by Maini," said Arner, who had a ground-rule double for his team's lone RBI.

"We didn't have a great regular season by our standards and felt we were much better team than what we showed. So we were excited to start over and looked at the playoffs as the start of a second season. The intensity was there tonight but [Behler] just threw a great game against us. We really didn't hit the ball hard."

Arner, who was away from the league last year after being a Fleetwings player-manager for several seasons, is thrilled to be back.

"Taking a year off was tough," Arner said. "It's also a little different to come back and not be the manager [Pat Lane runs Limeport]. I still like to have my say, but it is nice not to have the responsibility of running things and I can focus more on just playing."

Arner said Limeport, which beat the Yankees in last year's semis, needs to get the bats going soon.

"We think this is going to be a five-game series, but if we don't bring our bats it's going to be a short series," he said. "Matt Wiltrout will come back and pitch for us and Limeport Stadium plays to our advantage a little more because it's a bigger park and we've got fast outfielders. We just need to play good defense and bring our bats."

 

Whoever wins this series will undoubtedly get Gabelsville in the league championship series and the Owls, three-time defending champs, will be favored.

Gabelsville beat Boyertown in the first game of the other semifinal series on Saturday and will look to take a 2-0 stranglehold.

But for now, the Yankees and Bulls are focused on each other.