After meeting in early December, many anticipated the rematch between the Northwestern and Northern Lehigh girls.

To the surprise of many, however, Wednesday’s contest turned out to be a statement game for the Tigers.

Northwestern jumped out to an early lead and never looked back en route to a dominant 79-53 Colonial League victory.

On Dec. 3, the two teams battled in what ended as a 64-59 Tiger win.

Because of that, Tiger head coach Chris Deutsch knew of the challenge coming into this one.

“We knew this would be a tough game,” Deutsch said. “They’re one of the top four seeds in the (Colonial) League. The first game was a five-point game when we played them at our gym.”

Whatever preparations Deutsch had in place worked as the Bulldogs struggled with NW’s pace. The Tigers opened with 16-2 run, and finished the first quarter with a 25-13 lead, which included 10 points from senior Cara Thomas.

“We just pushed them from the beginning, and we just ran the court,” said Thomas. “We just tried to break their press, and we were scoring rapidly in the beginning.

“So I think that’s what the difference was. I think from the jump it was just a very intense, fast-paced game.”

Thomas finished with 28 points and added nine rebounds.

The second quarter saw more of the same from the Tigers as a 13-4 spurt helped expand the advantage at halftime to 48-26. In the frame, NW forced NL turnovers and received 11 points from Natalie Conner.

“I think we just had really good energy going into it, and just our hustle from the start. We knew we wanted this one,” said Conner.

Conner, who finished with 24 points, has immediately become a significant contributor for the Tigers.

Despite only being a freshman, her previous experience playing AAU has helped prepare her for a comfortable transition to the high school level. Conner’s teammates, and Deutsch, have been very impressed with her performance and recognize just how important she has become to their team.

“I think she definitely just put in a lot of work,” said Thomas. “I know she played AAU, which I also played AAU before high school basketball. I would say a big reason that she is probably able to score the way she does and play the way she does is because AAU is just such a higher level of playing style, and it really prepares you for high school.

“She’s just been an amazing asset to us, and I’m really grateful that she came in, and she’s able to score the way she does and help us win.”

“When I saw her put in the time in the summertime, I knew we had high expectations for her,” Deutsch said. “I didn’t know where she’d be at, but we thought she’d be really good for us this year, and she definitely has not disappointed whatsoever. She’s really stepped up, and the girls really welcomed her in.”

For Northern Lehigh, despite how the first half went, head coach Chris Heery chose to look at the positives of his team’s performance.

“Today was a setback, but I thought overall we played well,” he said. “They had that 16-2 run to start the game, and after that we played pretty close with them the rest of the game. Overall, I thought we did a good job. Our transition was good. We scored a lot of points on them. We just gave up too many points on them and that’s all.”

Many of those points came from Katelynn Barthold and Tegan Simms, who each scored 22 points.

As of now, the Bulldogs are still comfortably in a league playoff spot.

“If we take care of business and we play as well as we’ve been playing, we should be able to get a four or five seed in the Colonial League,” he said. “If we do that, I think it puts us in a good position to at least go more than one round in the leagues, and that’s really what we’re after.”

On the other side, Northwestern’s dominance continues as they remain undefeated in the league with three games remaining. Coach Deutsch’s only priorities right now are minor improvements and health.

“It’s one game at a time,” he said. “So next practice, we want to clean stuff up and then keep everybody healthy, and that’s the most important thing ... if we can do that, I think we’re giving ourselves a really good opportunity in postseason play.”

THE HOMESTRETCH … Northwestern finishes the regular season against Moravian Academy, Jim Thorpe and Palmerton. Northern Lehigh has four games remaining as it faces Palisades, Lehighton, Jim Thorpe and Palmerton.

NORTHWESTERN

Balliet 0-1-2-1, Scheffler 1-0-0-2, Bissell 2-0-0-4, Freeman 4-0-0-9, Thomas 11-5-7-28, Gober 1-2-2-4, N. Conner 11-0-0-24, M. Conner 0-0-0-0, Reinhart 2-3-4-7. TOTALS: 32-11-15-79.

NORTHERN LEHIGH

Williams 0-0-0-0, K. Barthold 7-7-9-22, D. Barthold 0-0-0-0, Simms 9-2-2-22, Snyder 1-2-4-4, Tosh 1-0-0-3, Ramos 1-0-0-2. TOTALS: 19-11-15-53.

Northwestern 25 23 19 12 - 79

Northern Lehigh 13 13 15 12 - 53

Three-Pointers: Northwestern - N. Conner 2, Freeman 1, Thomas 1; Northern Lehigh - Simms 2, K. Barthold 1, Tosh 1.

Records: Northwestern (18-1; 15-0 CL); Northern Lehigh (12-6; 9-5 CL).