The early 2000s were a good period for the Northwestern Lehigh boys basketball program and coming into this season, the Tigers hoped to become the first team since 2001 to win a Colonial League championship.

To get there, the Tigers had to down a rugged Catasauqua team that came into the tournament as the eighth seed in an eight-team bracket.

The Rough Riders had disposed of top seed Notre Dame of Green Pond in the opening round and then bounced fourth-seed Bangor in the semifinals to reach the final and face Northwestern. Their run ended with a 74-57 loss to the Tigers in the Colonial League title game last Friday night at Freedom High School.

The high-powered Northwestern offense had four players finish the night in double digits, led by Gavin Nelson’s 24 points. Eli Zimmerman had 19. Shane Marth finished with 13. and Mason Bollinger rode a productive first quarter to a 12-point night for the Tigers.

Even with the offense clicking, the upstart Rough Riders never shrank from challenging the number two-seeded team in the tournament.

With a 46-32 lead for Northwestern early in the third quarter, it looked like the game was all but done. Instead, Catasauqua cut the lead to 48-40. The run ended when Catty’s Matt Fotta protested a call a little too harshly and was given a technical foul. Nelson sank both free throws and then drove the lane for a layup to give the Tigers a 52-40 lead.

“Hats off to those guys,” said Northwestern head coach Pat Wanamaker. “Eric (coach Eric Snyder) has done a fabulous job with those guys this year. If we give out a Colonial League coach of the year award, I think it’s a unanimous decision to send that down there to Eric Snyder at Catty.

“It was tough near the end because we wanted to slow it down a little, but the transition had been what got us there, so we didn’t want to get away from that. In the end, we did a good job on our half-court game and were able to slow it down a little bit.”

The Tigers were helped by the fact that they came out of the locker room to start the game and went on an early run to put Catasauqua down and from there, didn’t allow their opponents to gain much momentum in the game. The Rough Riders got the first basket of the game, but little did they know that would be their only lead of the night as Northwestern just put on their usual offensive display and the defense did its job in stopping Catasauqua.

“Like every other game this year, we had to come out hot,” said Zimmerman. “Catty had a Cinderella run going and is a hot team, so we knew we had to control the game from the start. I think we just had better athletes tonight. Our seven that we play was better than their top seven and we were able to execute tonight.”

Zimmerman was a member of the Northwestern football team that won a state championship this season and is hoping the basketball squad can make a similar run in the playoffs.

“We’re definitely going to celebrate this one and enjoy it because it’s our first title in 24 years,” said Zimmerman. “Our job’s not done though. This is only step one in our journey.”

The win put Northwestern Lehigh at the top of the 4A classification for districts, which also provides them with a bye in the first round of the district playoffs. Northwestern will be off until Feb. 25 when it will face the winner of the quarterfinal game between Wilson and Lehighton.

“It’s great to be on the top of the bracket on that paper,” said Wanamaker. “We get a week off now. We get a bye into the semis, so that’s going to allow us to rest up a little and hopefully, we can keep this going in districts and see how far it takes us. This is a fun team to be around and I’m not ready to get rid of them yet.”