Northwestern Lehigh head coach Len Smith told his senior ace Josh Williamson before the Tigers' Colonial League semifinal contest against Salisbury that there is no such thing as tomorrow in single-elimination tournament games.

Williamson pitched five effective innings against Bangor during Saturday's quarterfinal victory and didn't expect to be used against Salisbury again.

However, Williamson earned the save during Northwestern's thrilling 5-4 10-inning semifinal victory against the Falcons.

"It feels awesome for many reasons," said Williamson when asked about the win. "We haven't beaten them at all this season. This is the first time we've ever been in the league playoffs as seniors and it's a pretty exciting experience to make it to the league championship."

The Falcons beat the Tigers twice in the final two weeks of the regular season. They mercy-ruled them in their first meeting, when the Tigers held a two-game lead in the West Division. The Falcons beat them again on May 4 in the penultimate game of the regular season. Those wins earned the Falcons the division title and a bye in the first round of the playoffs.

Those losses sent the Tigers tumbling down to the No. 3 seed for the league tournament and gave them some extra motivation to beat Salisbury in this year's final meeting.

Northwestern started off scorching hot in the first inning of the league semifinal, played last Tuesday at Limeport. The top of the order strung together four consecutive hits to start the game, including Tyler Schreiner's inside-the-park, two-run home run.

"We feel we have three people at the top of that order that can hit the ball and have speed," Smith said. "However we get on base, we're usually going to run on people. You saw that with the way he circled the bases in very quick order. The speed there is outstanding."

Salisbury also struck in the bottom of the first inning, but Tigers' starting pitcher Jordan Storm settled in and tossed an efficient six and a third inningslimiting the Falcons explosive offense to just two runs.

Northwestern clung to a two-run lead in the bottom of the seventh frame, when Salisbury's Evan Kulig came through with a two-run single up the middle off of Jacob Augustus to even up the game an send it to extras.

"He did everything we asked him to do," said Salisbury head coach Mike Pochron. "He faced them twice this year (on the mound) and we thought we would give them (Northwestern) a different look. He came in and gave us everything and more at the plate and on the mound."

Kulig relieved Salisbury starter Chad Cooperman in the fifth inning and limited the Tigers to just two runs (one earned) over his five innings.

Thanks to sloppy Salisbury feilding, the Tigers manufactured a run in the top of the tenth frame. The winning run scored on a throwing error.

"It was a hard-fought game and everyone gave everything they had," said Pochron. "Both teams had a lot of opportunities. We had some in the last few innings. We could have ended it a few times. Unfortunately we made a few mistakes in the tenth inning that ended up costing us the game."

Salisbury tried to answer in the bottom of the 10th inning. The Falcons had runners on second and third and one out when Williamson was called upon to get the job done.

Williamson ended the game with a strike out and a fly out to centerfield on an excellent catch by the Tigers' Taylor Breininger.

"Breininger (Taylor) is a very good outfielder that covers a lot of ground out there," said Pochron. "That was a great catch that not all centerfielder would have made, he probably saved the game right there."

Salisbury is scheduled to open District 11 Class AA tournament play as the No. 4 seed, hosting a first-round game against Pine Grove Wednesday at 4:30 at the high school.

With a win they would move on to Saturday's semifinal round.

N'hwestern 200 101 000 1 – 5 9 2

Salisbury 101 000 200 0 – 4 11 5

Storm, Augustus (7), Williamson (10), and Wiik; Cooperman, Kulig (5), and Rogers. W – Augustus. L – Kulig. HR – Schreiner (first inning, one on)