Bethlehem Catholic and Northampton’s girls’ basketball teams matched each other point-for-point, but possession-by-possession was how the Golden Hawks defeated the K-Kids, 44-40, on Saturday at Becahi.

“This was a big signature win for us. We needed one,” said Becahi coach Jose Medina. “We saved all our first half timeouts, and we said, ‘If this team needs to learn down the stretch, let’s conserve and let’s teach them down the stretch.’ Sometimes it’s possession by possession, and today the girls did a great job of executing down the stretch.”

After a scoreless first three minutes in the fourth quarter with the K-Kids ahead 31-30, Becahi forward Cydney Stanton hit a three pointer.

“Coach Repsher always tells me, ‘Just keep your form and shoot it.’ I felt a lot of confidence and could hear my teammates cheering, so it felt really good and I could feel the intensity of the game, but you try to keep a level head,” Stanton said. “We know what we have to do, and at the end of the day, we like to get it done.”

Becahi guard Kiki Walters followed up with her own three pointer minutes later.

“It’s a play we run, so when I came off it, I knew I was going to have the shot,” Walters said. “I was just thinking we’ve got to get back on defense because if they come down and hit another one, then the game’s tied again, so I was making sure we came down back on defense and stayed locked in.”

The K-Kids did come back down, but time was running out when Morgan Sterner hit a three pointer with 2.2 seconds left.

“Beca’s a good, young team. They’re fast and you can’t give them too many second opportunities, and we gave away a few. We’re down one starter today, Grace Lesko, so that was a big miss, and 10 to 12 points we usually get from her,” said Northampton coach Jeff Jacksits. “They were keying in on Morgan, which I would too. Morgan had some nice assists early on when we drove the lane and they’d collapse on her and she kicked it to (Devyn) Demchak for a couple easy layups, and Kylie (Gilliard) broke out of her shell today and was the high scorer for us.”

Gilliard had 18 points for the Kids, and the tandem of Sterner and Demchak worked well for Northampton with Demchak left wide open and found twice in the first half.

Becahi guard Kourtney Wilson had a game high 20 points.

“Kourtney Wilson’s very good and we did make some adjustments at halftime to try and stop her from coming off the screens and jumping,” said Jacksits. “She’s a jump shooter, and you don’t see too many of those in girls’ basketball, and when you do, they’re tough to defend. We did a little better job in the second half in trying to contain her, and then at the end it came down to that they were going to give her the ball so she could shoot foul shots.”

The Hawks had just come off a loss to Freedom three days earlier.

“This condensed schedule allows you to get stuff out of the system right away, and it doesn’t allow you time to linger,” Medina said. “You get one practice and then another game.”

The K-Kids had just come off their own signature win against unbeaten Nazareth.

“We’re playing pretty good basketball. That’s all we ask, going into the playoffs, and we have some extra games coming up with Parkland and Emmaus,” Jacksits said. “We’re hoping Morgan can stretch it to 1,000 points. She’s at 57, so we’ll see what we can do. Getting on a three-game win streak going into playoffs would be nice.”

The Hawks and the K-Kids will have met again this week past Bethlehem Press deadlines.

“Before the game, we discussed how they beat Freedom and Nazareth and they’re a great team,” said Stanton, “but this is our gym and our house, our home, and we had to defend it today.”