ALLENTOWN — For Northwestern, the bottom of the seventh inning worked nearly to perfection.

It involved key plays by a senior, a junior and a freshman that combined to break a 29-year district championship drought.

Coming into the seventh, the Tigers and Allentown Central Catholic were tied 4-4 in the District 11 Class 4A championship game on Saturday.

Mason Vogwill put down the Vikings in order in the top of the inning. Now it was the Northwestern offense’s turn to continue the momentum that it started the inning before when it scored three times to tie the game.

Central reliever Justin Welch got the first out of the seventh, bringing senior Tyler Wiik to the plate. Wiik had a gritty at-bat and wound up drawing a walk. Nate Goodolf came on as the courtesy runner just as he had done twice earlier in the game when Wiik reached base.

Derek Holmes came to the plate and promptly lined a double to right-center field to put runners on second and third with just one out. Central Catholic coach Mike Brosious went by the book and issued an intentional walk to freshman Rafe Perich to bring up another freshman — Nic Henry.

Henry, who has shown poise in both football and baseball early in his varsity sports career, had tripled and scored Northwestern’s first run in the third inning. This time around, he was looking to just put the ball in play and not hit into a double play. After falling behind in the count, Henry let a couple close pitches go by and worked the count to 3-2. He delayed the result of the at-bat by fouling off a pitch. The next pitch was one he could put in play and he hit a chopper in the direction of shortstop Carter Welch, who charged the ball to make a play at the plate.

Henry focused on what he could do to make something out of the play.

“I just wanted to get to first as fast as possible. I didn’t know what was going on behind me, I just ran through the bag,” said Henry.

As he crossed the bag, he didn’t know what had happened behind him until he saw the reaction of the first base coach, who threw his hands in the air and ran toward home. At that point, all Henry knew was that something good had happened.

As Welch fielded the ball and went to make a throw, the ball popped out of his hand, bounced off his shoulder, and fell harmlessly – at least as far as Northwestern was concerned – to the ground.

Goodolf raced home from third and slid in with the run that gave the Tigers their first district championship since 1989.

“I have confidence in all of our players, and I wasn’t worried about having a freshman up in that spot,” said Tiger coach Duran Porrino, who credited Henry with putting together a big at-bat. “All I was thinking was for Nathan Goodolf to run as fast as he can.”

The win was the crowning achievement for the senior players who had reached the district championship in each of their previous seasons with the team, but were always the ones left on the outside looking in when the game was done. This year’s championship gave them an opportunity to play for a shot at the state championship in 4A.

“This means so much,” said senior Mason Vogwill, who got the win with four scoreless innings of relief after throwing 100 pitches in last Monday’s win. “Twenty nine years without a district championship, it just feels so special for our team to come out here and put up a district title.”

Northwestern moves to 17-7 on the season and will face the District 12 champion in the PIAA opener on Monday.