When you’re hot, you’re hot.

The Northwestern Lehigh baseball team stretched its winning streak to five games with wins over Notre Dame (Green Pond) and Northern Lehigh recently. The streak leaves the Tigers at 10-6 overall, clinching a spot in districts and putting them at 8-5 in the Colonial League, tied with Salisbury for the fifth spot in a six-team postseason tournament. Wilson stands just behind the two teams at 7-7.

Against Notre Dame (6-11 overall, 5-10 Colonial) the Tigers won in walk-off fashion in the bottom of the ninth. Eli Zimmerman worked a walk to open the inning and Austin Eisenhard bunted to move him into scoring position, but dropped a well-placed bunt and was able to reach base on the play to put two runners on with nobody out. Shaun O’Donnell singled to load the bags and one out later, Wes George brought in Zimmerman with a sacrifice fly to center to give Northwestern a 1-0 win.

O’Donnell and Chase Moyer combined on the two-hit shutout with O’Donnell going eight innings and striking out nine and Moyer throwing a clean ninth inning with one strikeout. The outing lowered O’Donnell’s season ERA to 1.47 in 11 games.

Against Northern Lehigh (3-14, 3-11), the solid pitching continued and the offense went to work as well in a 13-3 win over the Bulldogs.

The game was shortened to five innings because of the 10-run rule when Bob Croneberger led off the fifth with his first home run of the season on a 2-1 pitch.

Justin Augustus was then hit by a pitch and went to second when pinch-hitter Shane Hulmes worked a walk. Cannon Fitch then hit a ground ball to short that was misplayed, allowing Augustus to score the walk-off run for the win.

George, Augustus, Croneberger and Zimmerman all finished with two hits and two runs scored in the game, while Croneberger drove in three and Zimmerman had two RBI on the day.

Moyer allowed just one earned run in three innings and Josh Lichman threw a shutout over the final two innings.

The Tigers play four games in seven days to finish the regular season with a couple of the games having a direct bearing on the playoff picture. Northwestern plays Southern Lehigh (13-1, 12-1), Palmerton (11-5, 9-5), Salisbury (9-7, 8-5), and Catasauqua (3-13, 2-13).

In the Colonial League standings, the Tigers hold the edge over Wilson thanks to beating the Warriors earlier in the season. Northwestern also beat Salisbury earlier in the year, but their second meeting of the season is coming up on Saturday at Salisbury High School.