ALLENTOWN - Jerry Lloyd didn’t hide his disappointment.

Bounced from the District 11 playoffs with an 84-44 loss to Central Catholic in the Class 4A semifinals on Monday, Northwestern’s head coach wanted more from his first postseason with the program.

“They played fantastic. They made a lot of shots, and you have to give credit to them for doing that,” Lloyd said. “Maybe I need to get a better game plan together for the kids, but Central played fantastic. They were the better team tonight.”

Central hit 13 threes in the contest. Aidan Burmeister knocked down three of his four shots from beyond the arc in the first half and finished with 12 points. Tyson Thomas (15 points) and Andrew Csensits (11) both hit three treys.

When the second-seeded Vikings weren’t raining down triples, they were getting buckets inside.

Liam Joyce, listed at 6-5, led the way with a game-high 22 points as he cleaned up underneath.

His presence, along with Christian Spugnardi – who is also listed at 6-5 and scored nine points – down low complemented Central’s play on the perimeter.

“When you have inside-outside, it makes it very difficult on a defense,” said Lloyd. “We wanted to defend the three a little better than we did, and try to front the post, but they’re just a good team.”

The Vikings led the No. 3 seed Tigers 14-11 at the end of the first quarter. A three from sophomore Cayden Fitch (eight points) cut Northwestern’s deficit to four (21-17) midway through the second period.

But Burmeister responded with a triple at the other end, kicking off a 14-0 run that lasted until a little over two minutes to play in the first half.

“Northwestern’s had a tremendous season, and watching them play, we knew that they were extremely disciplined,” said Central head coach Dennis Csensits. “They got three or four backdoor cuts on us early, I thought because we were over-aggressive and lost our discipline, and to their credit, they took advantage of it.

“But I thought once we settled into our defense and were a little more disciplined with our aggression, we were able to go on a run, and we were were fortunate tonight. The ball went in the basket, and we made a lot of shots. And it’s one of those things, once you get on a run like that and they start going in, guys were feeling good about themselves”

The Vikings outscored the Tigers 46-17 over the second and third quarters.

Junior Justin Holmes led Northwestern with 11 points, while Nick Henry added 10.

As Lloyd let the sting of the loss sink in, he did so knowing that his team is positioned to make another postseason run next year with just one senior (Henry) in the starting lineup.

“For these guys to come in, not really have an offseason and have a new coach – a whole new staff, a whole new system – to finish 14-6, I’m so proud of them,” said Lloyd. “But this one hurts, still. You get here, it still hurts. That hurt will be with us, hopefully it will stick with us in the offseason and it will just push us to keep getting better.

“We start four underclassmen, so we have the majority of our guys coming back; our sixth man off the bench is an underclassmen. I think the future is bright here. We’ll just keep working in the offseason to get to the point where we can compete in these games.”

SPREAD IT AROUND

... Six different players hit threes for Central. In addition to Burmeister, Thomas and Csensits, Colby Faust, Nico Pulieri and Brendan Reed all had one triple.

NEXT

... The Vikings will play top seed Bethlehem Catholic Thursday in the final.

NORTHWESTERN

Fitch 3-0-0-8, Christopher 2-0-0-4, Sosnovik 0-0-0-0, Holmes 5-1-1-11, Henry 3-3-4-10, Heilman 0-0-0-0, Witkowski 0-0-0-0, Stitzel 2-0-0-5, Lazarus 1-2-2-4, Garrido 1-0-0-2. TOTALS: 17-6-7-44.

CENTRAL CATHOLIC

Spugnardi 4-1-3-9, Fridia 0-0-0-0, Thomas 6-0-0-15, Csensits 4-0-0-11, Joyce 11-0-2-22, Faust 1-0-0-3, Burmeister 4-0-0-12, Pulieri 1-0-0-3, Himes 0-0-0-0, Patridge 0-2-2-2, Snyder 1-0-2-2, Reed 1-0-0-3, Jones 1-0-0-2, Stewart-Smith 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 34-3-9-84.

Northwestern 11 10 7 16 - 44

Central Catholic 14 25 21 24 - 84

Three-pointers: Northwestern - Fitch 2, Henry 1, Stitzel 1. Central Catholic - Burmeister 4, Thomas 3, Csensits 3, Faust 1, Pulieri 1, Reed 1.