If Northwestern had any hope of playing in Saturday's quarterfinal round of the Colonial League girls basketball tournament, a victory over Salisbury on Tuesday was necessary.

The Tigers kept those aspirations alive with one conference game remaining.

Following an early 16-12 deficit after the first eight minutes of play, the Northwestern's defense put together an effort over the final three quarters that neutralized the Falcons' top offensive weapons. The Tigers took the lead in the second quarter with a 17-9 advantage then stretched the lead led by double digits late in the fourth and hit their free throws down the stretch to down the Falcons, 50-39, at Salisbury High School's Bill Paulik Court.

After a loss to Southern Lehigh back on January 22, the Tigers needed to win out to have any chance at the league playoffs. Since then they've won four straight in conference.

"We knew that this would be the game that we had to win if we wanted to keep our chances up," said Erika Thomas, who finished with a game-high 17 points. "We really put a lot of emphasis on this game."

"We set that number five, and we put it on a board," Sabrina Mertz said. "We wanted to take one game at a time and not take any team for granted. We just have to keep getting that number down. We're down to one now, so hopefully we can get that."

The Tigers (14-7 overall; 10-6 in Colonial League) aren't locked into a spot yet, but they strengthened their bid at obtaining one of the final two spots.

With one league game remaining, Palisades (11-6) is fighting for one of the last two seeds along with Northwestern and Salisbury (16-5 overall; 11-5 in Colonial League). Palisades, which plays one more league game in the East Division, hosts Saucon Valley (12-5) on Thursday. Salisbury travels to Southern Lehigh (14-1).

One thing remains imperative for the Tigerswin on Thursday at Catasauqua (2-14).

"You can't overlook anybody," Thomas said. "We really just have to stay focused and keep playing as a team. If we play the way I know we can, we'll be fine."

While Salisbury's 6-foot-3 center Meagan Eripret saw two defenders on her at most times, Bauer erupted for 10 points in the first quarter to give the Falcons an early 16-12 lead. That lead grew to as much as six points early in the second period.

But behind seven second-quarter points from Mertz, who finished with 17, the Tigers began their comeback.

Megan Landrigan nailed a three-pointer from the left wing that brought it to 20-18. Then Mertz's foul-line jumper knotted it up at 20-20, and her steal and layup in transition on the next possession gave the Tigers their first lead since it was 8-7.

The Tigers scored seven of the final 10 points before halftime to take a 29-25 lead into the break.

"The three is a big part of our offense," said Mertz, who had a game high three three-pointers. "When we're hitting them I think we're a hard team to stop. Other than the three tonight, I thought we did get a lot of good layups and easy looks."

Landrigan also made two from beyond the arc, both in the second quarter.

Northwestern grew its lead slightly to 35-30 after three, and Mikaela Koenig's three-point play with 5:24 left on the clock have the Tigers a commanding 41-30 lead. That lead grew to double figures at 43-33 when Thomas drove down the left side of the lane for a layup, and the Tigers hit nine of 12 free throws down the stretch (including eight from Thomas) to hang on.

After Bauer scored 10 in the opening period, she was held to just three free throws the rest of the way. The team defense on Eripret limited Salisbury's leading scorer to nine points on 4-for-13 shooting.

"We knew defense was going to be the key tonight, especially shutting down Eripret and Bauer," Mertz said. "They are two of their main big scorers and great players. We knew that we definitely needed to rebound against Eripret, and I thought we did that pretty well tonight, which is why we were able to pull away."

Tipoff for Thursday's game is 7 p.m. at Catasauqua High School.