On Friday, the Lady Tigers' 24-15 loss to Dieruff was one of the biggest surprises of the evening.

By the time Saturday morning rolled around, the Lady Tigers' dismissal from the Stellar Catch A Rising Star Basketball Showcase might have come as a shock in the Lehigh Valley girls basketball landscape.

A year removed from rolling through the winner's bracket undefeated and earning the title in the same tournament, the Lady Tigers' run ended in disappointing fashion at the hands of Bethlehem Catholic on Saturday morning.

"I was very disappointed in this game," head coach Chris Deutsch said following a Lady Tigers' loss to Dieruff in their opening game. "I didn't think we played well at all. I didn't think we had a sense of urgency.

"It just didn't seem we were ready to play today. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was that we hadn't played together. I think some of the younger girls were a little nervous going into the environment and atmosphere that this is."

Without playing in any summer league games in the past few months, it's been tough for the Lady Tigers to build any chemistry or cohesion.

The Lady Tigers' early exit from Cedar Beach's annual tournament can be credited to that lack of continuity at this point in the offseason. The team has yet to play together as a whole due to other obligations. With forward Sarah Segan out of the mix, the same was seen throughout the Stellar tournament.

"Trying to get everyone to play together is a goal because we haven't had the whole team together one time all summer," Deutsch said. "It's just going to take some time right now. We are way behind. I knew coming into this that we're a little behind the eight ball right now."

On the flip side, the Lady Tigers were able to generate key minutes for a number of younger players, which can only bode well by the time winter hits.

"You've got to look at it as it's summer time," Deutsch said. "We had 15 girls show up [against Dieruff], and we got all 15 girls in the game. We're trying to get these younger girls some experience, and we're trying to get the older girls playing with the younger girls. We're just not there yet."

Five of the 15 girls were freshmen.

Bowing out prematurely in Stellar brought back memories of his team's run in last year's SportsFest tournament, a week after capturing the Stellar crown.

"It almost reminded me of last year when we played Allen in SportsFest and got kicked out," Deutsch said. "Even as bad as we were tonight [against Dieruff], we were still within four points. That's the thing. We have girls that we rely on scoring, and we just couldn't make shots tonight."

Boyertown's A team downed Parkland in overtime of the girls' championship game, 23-22.

The Northwestern boys also made an early exit from the Stellar Tournament.

Under first-year head coach Billy Hallman, the Tigers dropped their opening-round game on Thursday against Lehighton, 48-28. East Pennsboro then downed the Tigers on Saturday afternoon, ending their tournament run.

Parkland dominated play for much of their run in the winner's bracket en route to a 51-34 championship game win over Cedar Crest.