Before Tuesday night’s contest against Bethlehem Catholic, the Northampton girls basketball community paid homage to Grace Lesko’s entry into the Konkrete Kids’ history books as a 1,000-point scorer. Lesko had eclipsed the mark in the team’s previous game last Tuesday at Central Catholic.

Unfortunately for the K-Kids, there wasn’t much else to celebrate as the defending EPC champion Lady Hawks left Pete Schneider Gymnasium with a 70-47 victory.

Kaylee Christman knocked down a three-pointer at the 9:14 mark of the first quarter (the clock was mistakenly set to 10 minutes and no one noticed until it was too late) to put Northampton up 3-2 for their only lead of the game. Beca outscored the Kids 10-6 over the last 4 minutes of the quarter to head to the break up 24-17.

Northampton had cut the lead to 6 points early in the second quarter, but the Hawks went on a 15-0 run over a 4-minute stretch to quash any ideas the Kids might have had to gain a measure of revenge for last year’s EPC championship game.

Bethlehem Catholic went into halftime up 47-27 and scored the first 7 points of the second half to essentially put the game away.

Head coach Jeff Jacksits summed up the game, “We knew if they (Becahi) made shots, we were in trouble and they made shots (18 of 30 from the floor, including 6 threes in the first half). There was no way we could play man-to-man against them.”

Lesko led the way with 19 points and 9 rebounds. Sophomore Anne Beenders scored 8, including a pair of fourth quarter threes. Nicole Yellen had 7 points and 3 steals. Rounding out the scoring for the Kids were: Kadee Schrader 4, Christman 3, Madelyn Hurst, Jenna Gower, and Jenna Raysely each had 2.

The Kids’ record stands at 4-3, 1-3 in the EPC after facing a tough early schedule. Over the holiday break they will participate in the Coordinated Health Christmas Tournament at Pocono Mountain West High School. Their first round opponent on Dec. 28 will be old rival Nazareth. The Blue Eagles are 3-4 on the season.