Brooke Rogers pitched five shutout innings last Friday against visiting Northwestern.

It was those last two frames where the Lady Tigers were able to break through, score some runs and earn a Colonial League victory in the process.

The freshman ace pitched a complete game at Salisbury Middle School, fending off Northwestern for most of the game, but the Lady Tigers escaped with a 4-2 victory over Salisbury (4-4 overall, 4-3 CL).

"She did very well today," head coach Ken Choquette said of Rogers' performance in the circle.

"She had great control. She throws the ball where she wants to throw it, but our problem right now is we aren't hitting the way we can."

Neither team had any offense early on as the Lady Falcons struggled against Kaitlyn Bowers of Northwestern (3-5, 3-4). Salisbury got its first base runner in the third when Kelly Garrigan led off the inning with a single.

The Lady Falcons were the first to get on the scoreboard as they pushed two across in the bottom of the fourth frame as junior Thalya Creswell smacked a double to lead off and later scored on an error by Northwestern's Morgan Cleary.

Two batters later, classmate Meghan Williams got on base via another error by Cleary and scored on an RBI single by Rachel Costantini.

Unfortunately for the Falcons, they diddn't threaten offensively again for the rest of the game as Northwestern's Emily Bennett took over in the fifth in the circle and faced just one more than the minimum the rest of the way.

Northwestern opened the sixth inning with back-to-back singles by Brooke Wehr and Cleary to start a rally that netted three runs for the Lady Tigers and gave them a 3-2 leading going to the final frame.

Northwestern manufactured one insurance run in the top of the seventh as Erynn Day led off with a single and scored on a sacrifice bunt by Cleary.

Choquette knows his team is capable of more.

"With the talent level on this team, I know we can do better at the plate," he said. "We are working on getting the confidence up there. I think we can compete with any team in the league if they produce like the way I think we can."

The first-year coach did note that his team is fundamentally sound. Salisbury played error-free defense Friday afternoon.

Despite the loss, the Lady Falcons are still boasting a winning record in the Colonial League, have surpassed last year's winning total in the league and are moving in the right direction as a program.

"They have four times as many wins in the Colonial League already than compared to what they had last year," Choquette said. "They are very psyched about that. They are excited and motivated as we want the postseason. We want to win every winnable game and can't let them slip away."

Salisbury hosts Palmerton on Wednesday and Dieruff on Thursday before visiting Northern Lehigh on Tuesday, April 22.