The Northwestern Lehigh girls basketball team rolled to its third straight win Monday with a 66-24 win over the Bangor Slaters. The win moved the Lady Tigers to 3-1 on the season and gave them a 2-0 start in Colonial League games through the early part of the season.

The Tigers came out firing and held a 25-7 lead after the first quarter, thanks in part to 11 points in the quarter from senior Cara Thomas, who hit two three-point shots in the opening eight minutes. Thomas went on to score 20 points in the win with freshman Natalie Conner dropping in a career-high 19 points. Conner hit three shots from beyond the arc as Northwestern players drained seven three-pointers in the game.

Juniors Mallory Conner and Emma Freeman scored the other two three-pointers, and both finished the game with seven points.

Bangor had just three players score in the loss with Avery Nelson leading the way with 14 points in the game.

Through their first four games of the season,the Tigers are averaging 61 points per game as their offense is already in midseason form. Thomas leads the team with 19.2 points per game while Natalie Conner has averaged 15 per game in her first four varsity games.

Northwestern’s defense has had somewhat of an up-and-down start to the season. Bangor had come into their game against Northwestern Lehigh averaging 45 points per game but were held to just 24 by the Tigers defense.

In the season opener, the Tigers gave up 63 points to a high-powered Eastern Lebanon County team and then held Hamburg to just 15 points the next day. In a win over Northern Lehigh, the Bulldogs scored 59 points but have averaged just 31 points in their two other games. Overall, the Northwestern defense has allowed an average of 40 points per game.

While the Tigers had just one game over the last week, the schedule has them playing five games in the next week. It starts with back-to-back games this week against Southern Lehigh (1-3 overall, 1-1 Colonial) and Catasauqua (1-2, 1-1). Then after two days off, the Tigers go into a stretch of three road games in three days with games as they travel north to Lehighton (0-3, 0-3), east to Freedom (2-2, 1-2), and south to Saucon Valley (0-3, 0-3).