The PIAA basketball tournament will get underway tonight with sub-regional round games in several classes. While the majority of the state field - including the Palmerton boys and the Marian, Palmerton, Northern Lehigh and Weatherly girls - won’t swing into action until Friday or Saturday, the Northwestern girls will be among the teams playing tonight.

PIAA State sub-regional playoff

Northwestern vs. Lewisburg

Tuesday, 7 p.m. at Northwestern

LEADING OFF

The 16-year PIAA state playoff drought is over for the Northwestern girls basketball program - and the Tigers (26-2) couldn’t have asked for a better site to host their return to the tournament as they will kick off state play with a home game against Lewisburg (17-8). Northwestern, the District 11 third-place team, earned its state berth with a 50-36 consolation game win over Blue Mountain on Saturday. Lewisburg, the District 4 third-place team, qualified with a 47-39 consolation game victory over Shamokin.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

NORTHWESTERN – Nina Miller has played in 51 career games with the Tigers - including all 28 in this, her senior season. Miller is second on the team in assists, averaging 3.0 per game. Classmate Maci Fisher has played in 75 career games, including 27 this season. Fisher is second on the Tigers in both rebounds (6.0 per game) and blocked shots (2.5 per game). Miller and Fisher have provided plenty of support around the Tigers’ leading scorers Paige Sevrain (12.5 ppg.) and Cara Thomas

(10.2 ppg.).

LEWISBURG – Senior guard Sophie Kilbride is the lone Green Dragon player averaging in double figures as she sports an 11.0 points per game average. She scored 14 points in the District 4 Class 4A consolation game against Shamokin. Maddy Moyer (4.68 ppg.) came off the bench to score a team-high 16 points in the win over Shamokin. Senior Keeley Baker

, the Green Dragons’ six-foot center, averages 6.96 points per game.

BY THE NUMBERS

4

– The number of times the Tigers’ program has qualified for the PIAA State playoffs in Deutsch’s 20 years as head coach.

7

– The margin in the Tigers’ last PIAA playoff game - a 51-44 loss to Lampeter-Strasburg in the opening round of the 2007 state playoffs.

17

– The number of victories Lewisburg has recorded this season. The Green Dragons are a member of the Pennsylvania Heartland Athletic Conference Division I. They finished in third place in the league behind 8-2 co-champs Jersey Shore and Shikellamy.

26

– With its win over Blue Mountain on Saturday, the Tigers posted a school record for number of victories in a single season.

1,248

- With her nine points against Blue Mountain, Sevrain became the Tigers’ all-time girls basketball scoring with 1,248 points.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

“From here on out, everybody you play is going to be good. This is the cream of the crop right now, so you have got to be ready to play. We’re happy to get a home game out of this, and to be able to play in our own gym one more time. This is a big opportunity for our program. Our girls are excited to get a chance to play another game and play at home. This is a great group of kids. They work so hard, and are so coachable. We just don’t want this season to come to an end, because we look forward to coming to practice and working with these kids every day. Hopefully, we can keep this going and earn more opportunities to do just that.” - Northwestern head coach Chris Deutsch.