The Northwestern boys basketball team knew heading into last Thursday’s game that slowing down Palmerton’s Brayden Hosier would be a key to beating the Blue Bombers.

The Palmerton senior came into the game needed 24 points to reach 1,000 for his career and the Tigers were hoping to avoid him celebrating his milestone on their home court. Hosier had other plans.

Last Friday night at Northwestern Lehigh High School, Hosier scored 31 points, crossed the 1,000-point milestone for his career and helped the Bombers beat Northwestern 63-50.

The Tigers took a 7-0 lead to open the game, but Palmerton chipped away and by the end of the first quarter had tied the game on a three-pointer by Hosier, and then took their first lead of the night when Matt Machalik drove the lane for a basket to give the Bombers a 15-13 edge.

Machalik continued his work into the second quarter as part of an 11-0 run by Palmerton that gave them an eight-point edge midway through the second quarter. Gavin Nelson had seven first quarter points for Northwestern Lehigh and then went on a personal scoring spree to pick up six straight points for Northwestern to make it a two-point game with 4:45 left before halftime.

After Hosier had eight points in the first quarter, the Tigers held him scoreless in the second and for most of the third quarter as well.

That’s when Hosier found his spot, buried deep in the corner of the court to the left of the Northwestern basket. From there, he dropped three three-pointers late in the third quarter. The barrage erased a Tigers comeback that saw them tie the game and take a brief lead at 34-31, just before Hosier became locked in.

In the final quarter, Hosier hit two more three-pointers from the same spot to get his 1,000th point and wound up finishing with 1,007 by the end of the game.

Nelson finished with a team-high 25 points for the Tigers.

“It was one of those nights where we couldn’t get things going,” said Tiger head coach Patrick Wanamaker. “ We only scored back-to-back baskets twice. Overall, we are playing well, just some things we need to clean up and do better, but it’s a good start.”

There was no time for Northwestern to lament the loss as the Tigers returned to the court about 16 hours after their loss to Palmerton to face Salisbury. The Falcons had no answer for the size of Shane Marth (19 points) and Mason Bollinger (17 points), who combined to score 36 points in a 59-49 win.

Salisbury had an 11-8 lead at the end of the first quarter, but a wild second quarter saw the Tigers put up 23 points to take the lead and then push it to a 31-26 edge by halftime. That lead evaporated and the two teams were back to square one to open the fourth quarter with the game tied 41-41.

Northwestern was able to put the game away from there to put together the win.

The Falcons had no answer for Marth, a 6-foot-5 forward, and the rest of the Tiger post players.“Those guys did what they needed to do,” Wannamaker said of Marth and Bollinger. “If they score we win; if they don’t we probably don’t win the game. I challenged them at halftime. They needed to play both ends.

“Shane struggled a little bit defensively in the first half but we needed him on the floor on the offensive end so I challenged him at half and he responded. He played great help-side defense in the second half, blocked some shots, rebounded the ball and continued to give us what we needed out of him offensively. I hope for him it’s a little bit of an eye-opener for him to see what he can contribute night-in and night-out.”

After losses to Lehighton and Palmerton last week, Northwestern was looking to break its two-game slide Saturday despite playing at 12:30 p.m. Saturday the day after a Friday night game. The Tigers also had some players out of hte line up with illnesses.

“We didn’t have a lot of time to think about the loss last night,” said Marth. “Five games in seven days isn’t easy. Coach does a good job of helping us, giving us stuff to watch. He puts stuff on web sites so we can look at film.

“We definitely needed this win. It’s not easy to overcome two losses but we did it.”

The Tigers have been busy making up games after the football team’s run to the state final caused the basketball team to postpone it’s first two weeks of the regular season. The postponed games will be made up by the week after the holiday break and the team will return to a more normal schedule after that.

The Tigers play at Northampton on Saturday in a nonleague game and then return with another nonleague game against Kutztown on January 2. After a day off, they play at Saucon Valley before hosting Pen Argyl the next night.

“We don’t have a lot of time to breath right now,” said Wanamaker. “We get a bit of a break with the holidays, but then we have to get right back into a routine and get things together. The guys are really working hard and they’re playing well and taking the things we have worked on and bringing them into games.”