After a stellar regular season that included earning the top seed in both the Colonial League and District 11 playoffs, Northwestern Lehigh’s baseball season came to an end Tuesday evening. Despite winning 17 games in 2024, the Tigers won’t be bringing home a title.

District 11

Quarterfinal

The Saucon Valley bats got going in the fourth inning and Cole Hubert pitched a masterpiece in a 5-0 victory over Northwestern in a District 11 quarterfinal.

Hubert held the Tigers to two hits over seven innings and struck out 12 batters in the upset.

Northwestern had a few opportunities in the first few innings, but wasn’t able to capitalize against one of the top pitchers in the Colonial League.

“I think we’re a lot better team than they are, but that happens when you have the best player on the field,” Northwestern head coach Brian Polaha said. “First inning, he walked a guy and we got a little opportunity. After that, he really settled in and threw a lot of strikes. It was a challenge and we haven’t faced anyone like him all year.

“I wish we would’ve seen him in the regular season. He was the story today. He had like two or three hits. He’s a fantastic player and the best player in the league in my opinion. When you’re a pitcher like that, you can control the game.”

Hubert pitched a two-hit shutout and Northwestern had another opportunity in the sixth inning when the team had runners at first and second and no out. “Cole Hubert has had a heck of a season so far this year,” Saucon Valley head coach Gary Laub said. “Even when he gets into a little bit of trouble, he works his way out of it. He stays composed and doesn’t get rattled too much.”

Hubert was in a league of his own with the pitching performance and also had a few hits at the plate when Saucon Valley put up five runs in the fourth inning to take a 5-0 lead. The Northwestern bats went silent during Hubert’s pitching and the Tigers weren’t able to get anything going at the plate.

“At one point, we had a 13-game win streak and won 16 out of 17,” Polaha said. “The last few days is obviously disappointing. We had high expectations coming in. The more games you win, the more you feel like your expectations are realistic.

“It’s just a bad draw running into him. Overall, we were 14-2 in the conference and we were the No. 1 seed for districts. Any other matchup I would’ve loved to have. I just didn’t want to face him. We have to. He’s here. I thought we battled and competed. It’s just really hard to win when you know you might not be able to give up any runs.”

Colonial Leauge Final

Northwestern Lehigh stranded five runners in the first two innings against Wilson but the Tigers couldn’t take advantage of the early momentum, which led to Wilson leaving Weiland Park at DeSales University with gold Colonial League medals hanging from their necks as they downed Northwestern 3-2.

Wilson starter Shaun Danielson struggled with his command and gave up two hits to go with three walks and a wild pitch, throwing 41 pitches in the first two innings. The sophomore lefty also made a throwing error when he tried to pickoff Aidan Freeman at first base early in the second inning. Because of a 105 pitch limit, Danielson looked like he was not going to be able to last deep into the game, but things changed quickly.

“They didn’t have their ace today and I figured if we could start fast, we would be able to get into him pretty good, but they wiggled out,” said Northwestern coach Brian Polaha. “That was a big deal because he (Danielson) settled in and started throwing more strikes and we played our worst game of the season offensively.”

Danielson did settle in and retired 14 of 17 hitters to get him into the seventh inning at 95 pitches.

Senior Josh Lichman got the start for Northwestern and was locked in from the start with just a small first inning hiccup. After retiring the first two hitters, Lichman surrendered a single and then hit the next batter to put two runners on but went on to retire the next 13 hitters to get him through five innings on just 44 pitches.

In the top of the sixth, Wilson took advantage of a wild play to open the inning that would lead to two runs. Angelo DiBiagio hit a sharp grounder to third that was fielded nicely by Bobby Croneberger, whose throw across the diamond sailed to the home plate side of first leading to a collision between DiBiagio and first baseman Watson Church, causing the ball to pop out of Church’s glove. Zakary Kardos then grounded a ball through the middle that was hit just hard enough to sneak past shortstop Cole Dynda’s diving attempt and roll into center field for a base hit. A wild pitch moved both runners up and one out later, Andrew Sagrestano grounded to second with the infield in but the throw from Cannon Fitch was off the mark allowing a run to score. Gunner Scheetz then grounded a single to right to give Wilson a 2-0 edge.

“They didn’t really hit Josh that hard in that inning,” said Polaha. “The collision knocked the ball out at first and they got the little seeing-eye single and we didn’t execute on the play with the infield in. That inning could have gone very differently for us

Josh Farber walked to lead off the Tigers sixth inning and was sacrificed to second, but Danielson then got a pair of pop-ups to leave the runner stranded.

Wilson got more breathing room in the seventh when Kardos doubled off the wall in left field to bring in DiBiagio, who had reached on a fielder’s choice, putting Northwestern down 3-0.

“There were two bad feelings that I had in this game,” said Polaha. “When we didn’t score in the first, I thought that was our chance to establish this game, and then that third run in the seventh inning.”

The Tigers are known for come-from-behind wins and when Dynda walked to open the seventh, the Northwestern faithful were convinced this was just going to be another walk-off win and a league championship.

Having reached the 100 pitch mark, Danielson exited in favor of senior Hunter Stasak and Eli Zimmerman greeted him with a single to left center. Northwestern then pulled off a double steal to put two runners in scoring position, but Stasak settled in to get a pair of infield pop-ups. As Stasak looked ready to close out the win Croneberger came to the plate and grounded a ball to short that bounced off the glove of Kardos, allowing both Dynda and Zimmerman to score and make it a 3-2 game.

Just as quickly as Stasak had appeared to pitch himself out of trouble, he was back in trouble when he hit Josh Farber with a pitch and then gave up an infield single to Justin Augustus to load the bases. Polaha then sent freshman Brady Zimmerman to the plate and Stasak was able to get him to ground to second to finish off the Tigers and give Wilson its first Colonial League championship since 2008.