Northern Lehigh came out in a giving mood in the first quarter, turning the ball over 13 times. That allowed Northwestern Lehigh to jump out to an early lead and the Tigers never looked back

Northern Lehigh would turn the ball over 28 times in the game as Northwestern took a 49-14 Colonial League win.

Junior Ali Lister led all scorers with 13 points and freshman Paige Sevrain finished with 12 for Northwestern (15-4; 12-2). Sophomore Emma Niebell finished with 10 points for Northern Lehigh.

“I thought we played really well tonight and not only took advantage of the turnovers, but forced some of them by being aggressive,” said Northwestern coach Chris Deutsch. “We had a tough game Thursday night at Wilson and we kind of needed a game like this tonight. I think we came out aggressive and tried to put them away early and that was important.”

One of the keys for Northwestern Lehigh lately has been the play of junior Tess Ledeboer. Her role as the first player off the bench is much the same that it was last season, but she has been more involved in the scoring, including a season-high 16 points in a win against Southern Lehigh earlier in the week. Ledeboer finished with eight points and five rebounds in last night’s game. She also served as a spark defensively for the Tigers.

“We’re playing really well right now,” said Ledeboer. “We all know what we need to do to win and we all worked hard over the summer in the Parkland League and in tournaments and we worked hard in practices and it’s showing now.”

“Tess does everything that we ask her and I’m not sure that anybody on this team has worked harder for us than she has,” Deutsch said. “She plays hard on defense and works hard around the basket and she’s really picked up on offense. She doesn’t get a lot of attention, but she does a lot of our dirty work in tough situations and does it all well.”

Northwestern went on a 12-0 run in the first quarter to open the game up and lead 17-3 at the end of the first quarter. They would put together another 12-0 run in the second quarter to lead 31-9 at the half. Throughout the second half, Northwestern continued to stretch its lead and led by as many as 36 when Gabrielle Giese hit a short-jumper with just under four minutes to play in the game.

“We had a lot of contributions tonight. This was definitely a team win for us,” said Deutsch. “I thought that even our young players that we had in there at the end of the game played really well and that’s always good to see.”

The Tigers defense prevented Northern Lehigh from ever getting any offensive traction throughout the game. Niebel scored the only Northern Lehigh points in the first quarter when she hit a three-pointer. She also scored the only points for the Bulldogs in the second half, by dropping in two foul shots in the third quarter, followed by another three-pointer in the fourth quarter.

The win was the third straight for Northwestern and their seventh in their last eight games. Northern Lehigh has dropped three of their last four games to fall to 8-9 overall and 6-7 in the Colonial League.

WE ARE IN

... The win locked up a West Division title for Northwestern by putting them three games up over Palmerton with three games to play. The Tigers beat Palmerton twice this season to give them any tie-breaker that could be needed. The division title also gives Northwestern Lehigh a first-round bye in the league tournament.

HOUSE BAND.

.. The Northwestern Lehigh pep band was on the scene for the first time for a girls home game this season. The band played the National Anthem and provided entertainment during breaks in the game, bringing a high-spirited feel to the contest between the two rivals.

NORTHERN LEHIGH

Wilk 1-0-1-2, Lear 0-0-0-0, Hoffner 0-0-0-0, Hoffman 0-0-0-0, Dougherty 0-0-0-0, Seier 1-0-0-2, Klimek 0-0-0-0, Niebell 3-2-2-10. TOTALS: 5-2-3-14.

NORTHWESTERN LEHIGH

Lister 6-1-2-13, Jones 0-0-0-0, Ledeboer 4-0-0-8, S. Sevrain 6-0-0-12, Hess 0-0-0-0, Dorney 0-0-1-0, Funk 1-0-0-2, Fisher 1-0-0-2, Giese 2-0-0-4, P. Sevrain 4-0-0-8, TOTALS: 24-1-3-49.

Northern Lehigh 3 6 2 3 - 14

Northwestern 17 14 8 10 - 49

Three-pointers: NL – Niebell 2. NW - None.