For the first time this season, Northwestern Lehigh came up against a team that could out run and out dazzle the Tigers when they faced Allentown Central Catholic in the District 11 finals last Friday night at Easton Middle School.

From a pair of slam dunks that brought the Viking faithful to their feet to a physical style of play that allowed Central Catholic was able to gain control of the game to pick up a 68-57 win.

The Vikings (22-4) got a pair of late first quarter baskets, the second one by Jahrel Vigo at the buzzer from beyond the arc, but Northwestern clung to a 15-12 at the end of the first eight minutes of play. With 5:51 left in the second quarter, Central Catholic tied the game on another three-pointer from Vigo, who finished the game with 38 points.

From that point, an 11-1 run sent the Vikings to a commanding 28-18 lead in the final minute before halftime. The best the Tigers (24-3) could do was a three-pointer by Brady Zimmerman to cut the lead to seven going into the break.

Things got a little more out of hand in the third quarter when Central Catholic’s Yariel Gonzalez drove the lane for a layup to make it 34-25 but was then called for a technical that gave Northwestern two foul shots and the ball.

Gavin Nelson sank both of the shots from the line and Brady Krimmel added to the advantage when he hit a three-pointer to complete the play and cut Central’s edge to 34-30 with 5:20 left in the third quarter.

From there the Tigers got just four foul shots over the rest of the quarter while the Vikings went on a 10-4 run to make it a 44-34 game at the end of three quarters.

“We expected what went on tonight,” said Northwestern Lehigh head coach Patrick Wanamaker. “Two really good basketball teams, two really physical basketball teams and sometimes that physicality blurred the line a little, but it’s a high emotion game and they are all high emotion kids. Everything they did tonight was what we expected them to do, and they just executed a little better than we did down the stretch.”

Krimmel opened the final quarter with his second three-pointer of the game and on the ensuing trip down the court Eli Zimmerman was called for an intentional foul and both he and Central Catholic’s Tom Roth were given technical fouls.

From that point on the Vikings went into automatic mode and were hitting from all over the court while the Tigers struggled to get shots to drop. Central went 9-for-10 from the foul line over the last 1:41 of the game to put away the win for their 23rd District 11 championship.

While Vigo led Central Catholic, Nelson finished with 19 points, while Eli Zimmerman and Shane Marth both finished with 10.

Even with the loss, Northwestern advanced to the PIAA tournament that gets underway Friday, and Wanamaker doesn’t expect any hangover from the loss in the district finals.

“Whenever they have an opportunity to compete, they’re going to do that,” said Wanamaker. “We’re at a point where we’re playing for our season, so we’re going to add that extra motivation and we’re going to prepare all week and we’re going to keep playing basketball. This is a really special group of kids so I want to keep them around as long as I can.”

Northwestern will host Scranton Prep (18-7), the number two team from District 2 in the opening round of states Friday night.