The Lehighton girls' basketball team handed Palmerton a loss on the opening night of the season.

The Lady Indians repeated that feat Wednesday night.Lehighton took down Palmerton 48-31 to advance to the championship game of the Lady Indian Classic, but this contest was far different from the first meeting."We only played them 18 days ago," Lehighton head coach Eric Gidney said of the Lady Indians 41-18 opening-night win. "And they've improved. Coach (Ralph) Andrews has done a nice job with a young group, and they knew what we were going to do. We knew that they knew what we were going to do, it was just a matter of us executing as well as we possibly can."Lehighton built a 14-6 lead after the first quarter and never trailed, but the Lady Indians were not able to completely shake a more confident Bombers' squad."To their credit, they did a nice job taking our transition opportunities away, which is something that we look for a lot," Gidney commented. "So it just took a while for us to get our half-court offense really going.""We got a lot of shots off. I don't think we shot particularly well, but I thought our shot selection was good, so I was happy about that."The Lady Indians' early advantage was a role reversal from the first meeting, when Palmerton held a 6-2 lead after the first quarter before being outscored 39-12 over the final three frames.On Wednesday, the Lady Bombers chipped away at their early deficit, and cut Lehighton's lead to 24-22 with 5:16 remaining in the third quarter on a basket by Linnaea Leister (14 points)."We played a better game than the one we played on opening night," said Palmerton head coach Ralph Andrews. "They felt a little bit more comfortable out there on the floor. I think we handled their defensive pressure a little bit better."We still knew what we were going to get from Lehighton. That wasn't going to change with (Skylynn) Faust and (Aubrey) Blasiak. Plus, Jada (Whiteman) is an all-league defensive player."Faust, who finished with 19 points, gave Lehighton breathing room, scoring five points in a 30-second period to put the Lady Indians up 29-22 with 4:30 remaining in the third. Blasiak scored six of her 13 points in a decisive fourth quarter that saw Lehighton outscore Palmerton 16-5. Whiteman finished with six points and also played stellar defense."There's a game plan that we talk about a lot, so for us to stay in it is to kind of still stay within that game plan," Gidney said of his team's strategy down the stretch. "It's about not taking your foot off the gas and continuing to look for opportunities."The composure was evident late in the game, as Blasiak, Faust and Savanna Buchinsky combined to go 6-for-6 from the foul line in the final 34 seconds to seal the win.UP NEXT… Lehighton will play Jim Thorpe in Thursday's Lady Indian Classic championship game, while Palmerton will take on Northern Lehigh in the consolation game.CHARITY?… While Lehighton made the most of its free throws late in the game, Palmerton struggled to do the same. A Leister basket made it 38-30 with 5:25 to play, but the Lady Bombers wouldn't get any closer, and went 1-for-6 from the foul line in the final minutes.PALMERTONPapay 2-1-4-6, Hirochek 0-0-0-0, Cincilla 1-0-0-2, Leister 5-4-6-14, Frantz 1-3-4-5, Wentz 1-0-0-2, Muniz 1-0-0-2, Ruch 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 11-8-14-31.LEHIGHTONBrown 0-0-0-0, Frey 2-0-0-4, Long 0-0-0-0, Whiteman 2-2-5-6, Blasiak 4-4-4-13, Miller 0-0-0-0, Pantella 0-0-0-0, Faust 8-3-3-19, Buchinsky 2-2-2-6. TOTALS: 18-11-14-48.Palmerton 6 10 10 5 - 31Lehighton 14 8 10 16 - 48Three pointers: Palmerton - Papay 1; Lehighton - Blasiak 1.