A couple team looking to snap early-season losing streaks met up last Wednesday at Salisbury High School.

Northwestern broke out of its funk with an 8-3 win behind some timely hitting and strong pitching performance from senior Mason Vogwill.

“The past few games we dropped were all mental mistakes, errors that we had to work on in practice,” said Vogwill. “Today we didn’t make as many errors. We swung the bats well today and puts some runs on the board.”

The Tigers (2-3 overall, 2-3 Colonial League) snapped a three-game losing streak with the win.

Vogwill scattered eight hits while striking out three through six innings. He gave up a pair of hits to start the sixth, allowing one run. The Tigers should have been out of the inning but a pair of errors kept the Falcons alive and allowed two more runs across.

“He’s been throwing well,” said Northwestern head coach Bob Fatzinger. “We haven’t been playing the best defense and that’s cost us. Today we put together a pretty good game. We swung the bat a little better today.”

Northwestern got a run in the first when the Schreiner brothers, Tyler and Trevor, hit back to back doubles for a 1-0 lead. They went up 2-0 in the third inning when Austin Stasko struck out but reached base on a passed ball. He eventually scored on a fielder’s choice.

“We aren’t making any plays at crucial times,” said Salisbury head coach Mike Pochron. “And every time we make a mistake it scores. That’s the way it seems. We should have a 1-2-3 inning, we get a ground ball, we get an errant throw and that guy ends up scoring.”

Northwestern got another run in the fifth inning when Stasko reach based on an infield single before scoring on Tyler Schreiner’s single to left field.

“We put our heads together and practice yesterday and we said we’ve got to swing and can’t keep taking pitches,” said Tyler Schreiner, who went 3-for-4 with two RBIs. “We proved today that it worked.”

The Tigers blew the game open in the sixth inning.

Zach Stanley, Isaac Fatzinger, Derek Holmes and Deven Bollinger hit consecutive singles to push across a three runs. After an error should have gotten Salisbury starter Andrew Sukanick out of the inning, the Tigers added one more on a Tyler Schreiner single to right field.

The Falcons (2-4, 2-4) scored three runs on three hits, an error and a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the sixth before Vogwill pitched out of the jam.

The Tigers tacked on a run in the seventh on an RBI single from Holmes.

The loss was the fourth straight for Salisbury, which opened its season with wins over Northern Lehigh and Bangor.

Freshman Deven Bollinger got the ball for the seventh inning and closed out the win for Northwestern. He allowed an early single but then struck out two of the next three batters.