A win against Southern Lehigh last week would have positioned the Northwestern girls basketball team in a good spot to make a run at the Colonial League playoffs.

But that task got a bit more difficult following Thursday's meeting with the league's top squad.

Despite pulling to within 34-33 with 5:08 remaining after trailing from the opening tipoff, the Tigers could never overtake the host Spartans. Erika Thomas' drive brought the Tigers within a point, but Southern Lehigh scored 11 of the next 14 points to down Northwestern, 45-36, at Southern Lehigh High School.

It was the Tigers' third league loss in four games after winning five in a row at one point. More importantly, it put Northwestern's league playoff hopes in jeopardy with five games remaining.

"This has been a tough stretch of games for us," head coach Chris Deutsch said. "We played Palmerton, Notre Dame, Palisades and Southern Lehigh, and we were in every game. We lost three of those four."

Northwestern (10-7 overall; 6-6 in Colonial League) is two and a half games out of the sixth and final seed, which is held by Palisades. The Tigers' win over the Pirates last Tuesday gave them an advantage in case a tiebreaker situation arose for the final seed, but a victory over the Spartans (13-2 overall; 11-1 in Colonial League) would've been bigger.

"This hurts in the standings for us," Deutsch said. "We have five games left. We told our girls that we have to take one at a time, but we need to win out to have any chance for a shot at leagues. If we lose any more games we're done."

Thomas, who finished with a team-high 10 points, hit her second three-pointer of the fourth quarter to cut the Spartans' lead to 41-36 with 1:59 to play. But Southern Lehigh closed out the contest by hitting all four of its free throws in the final 1:16.

As a team, the Spartans shot 10-for-16 from the stripe.

"I thought the difference towards the end of the game was foul shooting," Deutsch said. "I thought they hit some big foul shots, and the ones they didn't hit they got a couple of putbacks on those missed foul shots, which hurt us. We missed some foul shots in the fourth quarter and that really hurt."

To say the Tigers got off to a slow start would have be an understatement.

In watching Southern Lehigh jump out to a 14-6 lead after the first quarter, the Tigers committed 10 turnovers, many of which resulted in easy transition points for the Spartans. Northwestern had five turnovers in the first two minutes and six giveaways before their first field goal attempt.

"We have to be more mentally focused to begin the game," Deutsch said. "I thought we were a bit lackadaisical, and you can't do that against good teams."

But after that slow start, the Tigers gradually climbed back into the game. Northwestern chipped the Spartans' lead to seven points at halftime, kept that deficit at seven after three and cut it to just four on a Thomas three-pointer to open the fourth.

Sarah Segan, in her second game back after an injury, scored seven of the team's 11 in the period to keep the Tigers within striking distance in the third.

"She [Segan] was more effective tonight," Deutsch said. "She is not 100 percent, but she is gutting it out. She's going to give it everything she's got. To me, that says a lot."

Megan Landrigan also scored nine for the Tigers.

Southern Lehigh's Madison Campbell scored eight in the opening quarter and gave the Tigers trouble all game. She finished with a game-high 21 points and eight rebounds. Sydney Cyr scored 10 for the Spartans.

Northwestern beat Northern Lehigh on Tuesday and now travels to Pen Argyl on Saturday at 7 p.m.

"If we can get into leagues, records get thrown out of the window," Deutsch said. "It's who is playing hot at the right time. I really think we're coming around. We're not far away."