Northwestern Lehigh girls head basketball coach Chris Deutsch had a long talk with his team following last week’s 53-18 loss to eventual Colonial League champion Southern Lehigh in the semifinals at Northern Lehigh.

He kept them in the locker room well beyond the usual time for his post-game speeches to make sure they realized the season wasn’t over and they had a lot of time to forget the rough night against the Spartans.

“It’s going to take time,” Deutsch said. “I know we’re going to play Central Catholic next. It’s something we’ll have to get ready for and we’ll have a week and a half to prepare. We’ll just have to come back with a better effort. That’s what it’s all about. We can’t let it linger or our season will be over Saturday.”

Deutsch thought his team played some pretty good defense in the first eight minutes to trail Southern Lehigh by just three points.

The Lady Spartans took control in the second period, however, and never looked back in beating the Tigers 53-18 to advance to Friday night’s Colonial League championship.

“They played really well defensively and took us out of a lot of stuff we were trying to do,” Deutsch said. “Credit them. They’re very good. They’ve won 22 games in a row for a reason.

“I really liked the way we played defensively in the first half. I thought we really had them confused a little bit with the things we were doing. The problem was we couldn’t score to set up the defense that we were trying to use.”

The score was actually tied at 4-4 with 2:56 still left in the first quarter. The Spartans then scored the last three points of the opening period and first six of the second stanza to open up a 13-4 lead.

Five layups by Southern Lehigh off of Northwestern turnovers, plus a couple of three-pointers by Sydney Cyr and Amanda Mobley, widened the lead to 27-10 at halftime.

“They got on a little spurt there right before the half where we had some turnovers, couldn’t score and they really took advantage of that,” said Deutsch. “You’ve got to give them credit. They did a lot of good stuff tonight.”

Southern Lehigh ran the floor well and scored 10 layups off of steals.

“The only team that I’ve seen with that type of caliber is Minersville,” Deutsch said. “You’re going to have to play really well to beat them (Southern Lehigh). They’ve got a lot of fire power. You can take a couple of girls away, but they have others that can score. And they’re big.”

The Spartans had four girls finish in double figures, led by Mobley with 17, Cyr with 13, Elizabeth Cassel with 13 and 15 rebounds, and Olivia Snyder with 10.

The Tigers were led by Erika Thomas, who had 13 of her team’s 18 points. Thomas came into the game needing 12 points to hit the 1,000-point mark and did it with a pair of free throws with 1:54 left in the game.

“They blocked a lot of our shots and altered them,” Deutsch said. “They’re really good defensively. That really creates a lot of their offense.”

The Spartans, led by Cassel, a freshman, pulled down 35 rebounds to just 16 by the Tigers.

Northwestern had trouble getting a decent shot off in the second half as Southern Lehigh held the Tigers to no field goals. Northwestern’s offense came making 8-of-10 from the charity stripe.

“I thought we did a good job against their full-court pressure,” Deutsch said. “We just couldn’t get any shots. They just took everything away. “

Central Catholic head coach Mike Kopp calls this team the most inexperienced in 19 seasons, but you still can’t count it out the Vikettes at this time of the year.

The Vikettes (12-10) are led by Eastern Pennsylvania Conference second team member Neila Luma, a junior. Luma, a six-footer, has scored 265 points this season for a 12 points per game average.

NORTHWESTERN

Atitel 0-0-0-0, Lister 1-0-2-2, Chisdak 0-0-0-0, Sevrain 1-0-0-2, Koenig 0-1-2-1, Williamson 0-0-0-0, Dietrich 0-0-0-0, Thomas 3-7-8-13. TOTALS: 5-8-12-18.

SO. LEHIGH

Bennett 0-0-2-0, Cassel 5-3-7-13, S. Cyr 5-1-2-13, Dex 0-0-0-0, Miller 0-0-0-0, A. Mobley 8-0-1-17, B. Mobley 0-0-0-0, Schaffer 0-0-0-0, Snyder 4-2-2-10, Tankred 0-0-0-0, Campbell 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 24-6-14-53.

N’western 4 6 5 3 - 18

So. Lehigh 7 20 10 16 - 53

Three-pointers: NW - none; SL - S. Cyr 2, A. Mobley 1