It might not have been their best-played game of the season, but the Northwestern Lehigh Lady Tigers did come away with a win in the District 11 quarterfinals, beating Tamaqua 47-29 at Catasauqua High School last week. That put Northwestern into the district semifinals, where they fell to top seed Blue Mountain, 49-44. The Tigers will play in a third-place game this weekend and will move on to states with a win, or have their season end with a loss.

Tamaqua-

Northwestern

Both teams struggled through the first quarter, combining for nine turnovers as the Blue Raiders took an early 10-8 lead when the first eight minutes were over.

The second quarter was not much better, but the Northwestern defense began to flex its muscles and held Tamaqua to two points over the final five minutes of the quarter, grabbing the lead and then stretching it to 22-12 when Tamaqua got their first basket of the quarter. By halftime, the lead was whittled down to 22-16.

The third quarter is where things fell apart completely for the Raiders, who turned the ball over 11 times, many of which came on bad passes and other unforced errors, although the Northwestern defense did continue to play tough basketball.

Northwestern got its first four points from the foul line as Olivia Reinhart and Thomas both went two-for-two from the line. Thomas went on a run to hit three baskets over the next three minutes and Brook Balliet added a three-pointer as the Tigers scored 15 unanswered points to start the third quarter. Laura Ligenza got to the line and hit one of two foul shots for the only scoring of the quarter for Tamaqua as the Raiders went one-for-nine from the foul line in the quarter, a far cry from their six-for-nine shooting in the first half.

“I think at halftime we just realized that we needed to step it up on both sides of the court,” said Balliet. “Our defense has played really well, and we were doing okay early on, but we just had to play tougher defensively and start finding some opportunities for shots. Once we started to get it going a little, we kind of got into a rhythm and I think it frustrated them a little.”

In the final quarter, Balliet hit another three-pointer to make it 42-17 and as the Tigers relaxed their defense Tamaqua moved the score to 42-23 and went on to get the 18-point win.

Thomas finished with 23 points to lead all scorers and Lorelei Plasha finished with eight to lead Tamaqua.

“I liked how aggressive we were tonight. The other night against Palmerton we only got to the foul line three times, and they got there 18 times, so you won’t win many games playing like that. Tonight, we got in the double digits in foul shot opportunities, and it was because we played more aggressively.”

Northwestern needs one win to reach the district finals, where it has not been since 2006 when it lost to Central Catholic in the 3A classification. A year before that the Tigers won the 2A district championship when they beat Pine Grove, following a loss to North Schuylkill in the district finals a year earlier.

“I think that we have some things to clean up after tonight,” said Thomas, who was just six points shy of the 1,000-point milestone following the win over Tamaqua. “We came out with the win and we are really glad about that, but we need to do better on our rebounding. That’s been an issue for us consistently and we have to improve on it now because we are playing better teams and we can’t give them too many opportunities. The other team is getting too many offensive rebounds and too many chances to score.”

Northwestern-

Blue Mountain

On Saturday in the District 11 Class 4A semifinals, Blue Mountain erased a double-digit deficit to beat Northwestern.

Blue Mountain (22-6) caught a huge lift of momentum as it cut a 36-25 deficit to six points when senior Makayla Keck zipped in five straight points.

Perhaps sensing that Northwestern might be getting leg weary on the bigger Martz Hall floor, Carper decided to put her team’s full-court press back into play.

Blue Mountain was dealing and coming on strong. After Kylie Conway posted up for a basket, Heydt took over, scoring five straight points to cut Northwestern‘s lead to 39-37.

Emma Freeman tried halting the rally when she sank another triple, but Conway answered by recycling a missed shot.

Northwestern looked like it might hold off the Eagles’ charge when Oliva Minnich scored at the 1:52 mark for a 44-39 lead.

But, it proved to be the final points for Northwestern.

Blue Mountain dug deep as Keck flung in a triple (44-42), and its full-court defense then forced the Tigers into three straight turnovers.

Conway regained her composure after missing four free throws in the opening half and proceeded to knock down four straight charity stripe tosses to give her team a huge lift. Heydt and Keck then put the finishing touches on the comeback.

“We couldn’t finish the deal,” said Deutsch. “We were winning most of the way.

“I think a lot had to do with their late pressure. We had a nine-point lead in the final quarter, but the last four or five minutes they were better than we were.”

There was some joy amid the disappointment for the Tigers (19-7), as their terrific junior guard, Cara Thomas, wrote her name into the Century Club scoring her 1,000th career point in the third quarter - but Thomas would be the first to tell you, she would have gladly traded the milestone moment for a win.

“Obviously, it’s exciting, I worked so hard to get it,” she said. “I watched my sister Erica score her 1,000th-point and my brother (Devin) play. I was trying not to think about it, but I knew how much I needed. I know I should be happy, but overall I wanted to win. The good news is I’m glad we can still advance to states.”