BETHLEHEM - Northwestern Lehigh and Allentown Central Catholic are in different leagues, but the two schools built a football rivalry by being in the same classification for years in 4A.

Their teams had a few historic battles in the district playoffs until the Tigers were moved down to 3A for the 2022 season.

The change didn’t really end the rivalry, it just moved it to lacrosse where both teams are in the 2A classification and have a number of football players who switch to lacrosse in the spring.

For the third season in a row, the two teams met in the 2A boys lacrosse final. After splitting the first two battles, Central Catholic took the lead in championships Thursday night at Lehigh University’s Frank Banko Field when it downed Northwestern 17-6.

The first two quarters of the game were classics.

The crowd cringed with every hard hit, and applauded wildly as the two teams found themselves tied 3-3 after the first quarter of play.

Northwestern senior midfielder Devon Hildebrand got the first goal of the game, only to see the Vikings (12-7) get the next two - which came within 1:22 seconds of each other.

Not to be outdone, the Tigers (12-8) would get the next two goals. On the first, a pair of freshmen - Braydon Uricchio and Michael Lagowy - teamed up as Uricchio took a feed from his classmate and put it on goal to tie the game. Next, it was Blaine Snyder’s turn as he fired a shot that sailed past goalie Chris Burke to go up 3-2.

As Central Catholic played for a last shot, it got it when Luke Shimko registered his second goal of the game and once again knotted the score.

The two teams combined for six first-quarter penalties and three more in the second, with the Tigers collecting five of the nine trips to the box.

Snyder got his second goal of the night to open the second quarter and give Northwestern a 4-3 edge, but the Vikings looked to pull away with four unanswered goals and a 7-4 lead with 2:24 left until halftime. Snyder, a senior and the school’s all-time leading scorer, got his third goal of the night and the 143rd of his high school career, to pull Northwestern back to within 7-5.

“Honestly, I thought we played pretty sloppy in that first half, and we had to play a lot of man-down lacrosse because of the penalties,” said Tigers head coach Marcus Janda. “I thought we could have been up at halftime, but a lot of mental errors gave them opportunities. I was telling the guys that the first five minutes were going to dictate the second half. They came out swinging, and we didn’t.”

Central Catholic used those first five minutes to send a message as it added to its lead with goals from Tate Shoemaker and senior defenseman Jack Foley, whose score was the first of his varsity career. Three more unanswered goals moved the Central Catholic lead to 12-5 with 3:19 left in the third quarter.

Hildebrand answered with his second goal of the night, sailing a shot over Burke’s right shoulder to cut the margin to 12-6. But Shimko had some late-quarter heroics, getting his fourth goal of the game when he hit with two seconds left on the clock.

The Tigers came into the contest without defenseman Jared Meck and then lost Lagowy to a concussion, leaving their defense scrambling for solutions against Central’s high-powered offense. The Vikings would score four more times in the final quarter of the game for the 17-6 win.

“I don’t want to complain about depth issues, but when I lose a guy to a concussion and a second guy is already out, it becomes a game of attrition. If we get into a battle like that, it’s not good for us,” said Janda.

“Lagowy is my left-handed feeder, and on a team with predominantly right-handed finishers, it’s the left-handed guy that really makes the offense. We saw our offense get discombobulated when we lost him.”

While Central goes on to open the PIAA tournament against the runners-up from District 12, the season came to an end for the Tigers in their attempt to repeat as District 11 champions.

UNLUCKY NUMBER 7 … Janda will lose seven seniors to graduation. Among them are the program’s all-time saves leader, Bailen Smargiassi, who finishes his career with 618 saves - including 207 this season. Janda also loses Snyder, his all-time goal scorer, and a combined 69 goals from Hildebrand and Stone Sosnovik, who will continue his lacrosse career at Wilkes University.

“This senior group has had a lot of success on the gridiron and on the lacrosse field. We can’t forget that these are some of the guys who built the foundation of this program. They got us to this game in each of the last three years, and it’s a testament to the seniors and those leaders,” said Janda.

THE YOUNG AND THE READY … Janda started two freshmen - Lagowy and Urrichio - in the finals and another, Tyler Kaas, came off the bench to see a lot of playing time this season. Those three accounted for 64 goals and 43 assists this season. Sophomore Braxton Lakatosh also gained experience and finished with 11 goals and three assists.

STILL ONE AWAY … The Colonial League needs one more school to add lacrosse to sanction the sport. While Jim Thorpe and Lehighton are joining the league in the fall, neither has lacrosse. Bangor does have a youth lacrosse program, but they have not added it as a school sport.