Northwestern Lehigh field hockey head coach Lissa Opolsky was succinct in her assessment of her team after a 2-0 loss to Palmerton recently.

“We didn’t show up,” said Opolsky, who at that point had seen her team go 0-2-1 in its last three games as the season begins to wind down. The loss was important because it evened the season series between the two division rivals and left them tied atop the West Division in the Colonial League.

Palmerton got goals from Celeste Hoffman and Sydney Frantz in the win that saw the Blue Bombers collect 14 penalty corners with 12 of them coming in the first two quarters.

They converted on just one of those corners, but they were not frustrated at the lack of success. Instead, they were happy with simply drawing the penalties and creating chaos for the Tiger defense.

Northwestern went 0-for-6 on penalty corners in the game and was unable to put a lot of pressure on Palmerton goalkeeper Sarah Sabo, who finished the night with four saves.

Tiger goalie Emma Yanders stopped five shots on the night for Northwestern.

While the timing for a bad game was not great, Opolsky knows that it could have been worse.

“I would rather that happen now than later, and I think they learned a lot about themselves and a lot about what they have to fight through and adjust earlier and play with some emotion,” she said. “We are a little bit young and still learning in that regard, but I think if we use it in the right way, we can turn it into a positive heading.”

Northwestern responded by beating Lehighton 3-2 in a nonleague game and then on Tuesday night, Northwestern relieved some more frustration as four different players scored goals in a 4-0 win over Bangor.

Junior Cara Thomas opened the scoring with a goal early in the first quarter that gave her 100 points in her high school career.

In the second quarter, Olivia Costa scored on a corner play, getting an assist from Amelia Birch to make it 2-0.

Northwestern was awarded a penalty stroke and Hannah Gober nailed that shot with 5:35 left before halftime to put the Tigers up 3-0. In the final seconds of the game, Carsyn Van Norman added a goal to close out the win.

Northwestern (9-2-0 Colonial, 10-3-1 overall) holds the edge for the West Division lead over Palmerton (8-3-0, 9-4-0), which is essentially also a battle for the second seed in the Colonial League playoffs. With a 13-0-0 league record, Southern Lehigh has all but closed the door for the top position.

The two top seeds receive first-round byes in the playoffs. As of now, Palmerton, Wilson (7-5-1, 7-6-1), Moravian Academy (7-5-0, 7-6-0), and Bangor (6-5-1, 8-5-1) would finish out the bracket, but Salisbury (6-5-2, 8-7-2) moved closer to the final playoff spot with Bangor’s loss to the Tigers.