Call it grit. Call it guts.

Whatever it is, the Northern Lehigh and Bangor softball programs have it in spades.

The Slaters turned back a determined effort by the Bulldogs on Tuesday to come away with an 11-10 Colonial League win.

It was a victory that put defending Colonial League champion Bangor back over .500, and showed head coach Patrick Howarth exactly what he wanted to see.

“First off, Northern Lehigh deserves a ton of credit,” said Howarth. “That was a great game. They played really well. Our kids, we kind of needed a gritty win. We needed that gritty win to prove we can do it. We’ve kind of been off balance a little bit this year, trying to get our footing underneath us, and they needed that win.”

The Slaters (6-5, 6-3 CL), coming off a 2-1 loss to Pen Argyl on Monday, scored seven runs in the first two innings - including five in the top of the first.

But the Bulldogs (7-4, 5-4) didn’t quit, scoring three runs in the home half of the second and answered with another three in the bottom of the third to tie the game at 7-7.

Northern Lehigh - which pounded out 14 hits - , scored all seven of its runs in the first three innings with two outs.

“I knew that that’s the kind of team that they were,” Bulldogs coach Kate Farber said of her squad. “Bulldog softball, we take pride in being scrappy, they’re fighters, they’re never down and they never give up. We were hitting the ball well from the first pitch. So I wasn’t worried.

“They got a big lead on us, we made some mistakes defensively and dug ourselves a little bit of a hole, but we weren’t panicking at all because we hit the ball really well, and I knew from the first inning that we weren’t going to have trouble hitting it.”

Bangor answered with four runs in the top of the fourth inning. Brook Hermanski’s RBI single scored Jayleigh Figurski to make it 8-7, and the Slaters would add three more runs on two of the three errors in the inning to push the lead to 11-7.

That’s all Northern Lehigh would allow.

The Bulldogs pushed across two runs in the bottom of the fifth, as Kylee Snyder delivered an RBI double to score Skyelar Horack, and Haylie Fenstermaker’s RBI single plated Hayley Thoder to cut the deficit to 11-9.

That momentum carried into the bottom of the sixth, as Marisa Maehrer scored after reaching on a single to make it 11-10.

Northern Lehigh starter Emma Smith worked out of a bases-loaded jam in the top of the seventh inning to keep it a one-run game.

The Bulldogs’ got back-to-back one-out singles from Arabella Heintzelman - the No. 9 hitter - and leadoff hitter Fenstermaker to put runners on first and second. But Bangor starter Jaelyn Silfies got a double play to end the inning and seal the win.

“It’s tough. I think that it shows them that we can hang against tougher teams,” said Farber. “Bangor is solid defensively all the way around. So in order to score that many runs, we had to generate quality hits. So I think it shows them that we can pretty much hang with the best of the best.”

HIT PARADE

... Fenstermaker and Thoder, who scored three runs, finished with three hits apiece and an RBI for Northern Lehigh. Jordyn Hemingway had a pair of doubles and two walks with two runs scored, while Cadence Peters added two doubles, an RBI and a run scored. Snyder had an RBI single and a run-scoring double. Hermanski (two runs, walk), Jade Hendricks (three runs, two walks), Abby Orlemann (two RBIs, run) and Marissa Siu (walk, RBI, double) each had two hits apiece for Bangor.

BLOWING AWAY

... The wind was swirling throughout the game, causing problems for both the offense and defense. Peters crushed a ball to left field that looked like it would have been a two-run homer, but the wind carried it into foul territory. She responded with an RBI double to score Hemingway. Silfies also had a deep drive for the Slaters in the top of the second that would have been a grand slam, but again landed foul.

Bangor 520 400 0 - 11 10 0

N. Lehigh 133 021 0 - 10 14 5

Silfies and Huratiak; Smith and Stock. W - Silfies. L - Smith.