The Northwestern girls basketball team dropped its first two games of the season, falling to Whitehall 25-24 before getting drubbed by Allen 66-37. The two losses put the Tigers in a bad spot as they faced three more games in four days before they had a break in the schedule. Instead of hanging their collective heads and letting the season slip away, they went to work on the one thing that has led them to three straight wins: fundamentals.

It resulted in wins over Colonial League rivals Palisades (55-33) and Catasauqua (57-18) and a nonconference win over a tough Jim Thorpe team that fell to Northwestern 51-45 last Thursday.

With the hectic stretch of games behind them and a 3-2 overall record and 2-0 mark in the Colonial League, the Tigers have enjoyed five days off to continue working on the fundamentals that have helped them put together wins.

“I’m really proud of our girls,” said head coach Chris Deutsch after the win over Jim Thorpe. “That was our fifth game in seven days. To lose our first two to Whitehall and then William Allen, and then to come back and win three in a row, I really like the direction that we’re going with a very young team. We only have one senior in the entire program, so our entire starting lineup is back next year. We have a nice squad, and these girls are getting valuable experience.”

After 8-for-23 foul shooting doomed Northwestern against Whitehall, the Tigers ran into a strong Allen team that has moved on to go 3-1 in its first four games. Simply put, the loss to Allen was ugly, primarily because the Tigers lost sight of doing the fundamental things to win games. With only one day to right the ship, Deutsch kept preaching fundamentals and the players listened.

“We really stress that,” said Deutsch. “At times, I’m really hard on the girls, not in a mean way, but just in handling the ball and making the right decisions. We work on that in practice and having a high basketball intelligence and I demand a lot and I know that I’m not the easiest guy to play for, but the little things make a difference in a game like this. You have to be able to make foul shots, make the right pass in situations.

“The difference right now is that we’re making some shots. The first two games, we just couldn’t hit shots. Against Whitehall, we had looks, to be honest, but if you shoot 8-for-23 from the foul line, you don’t deserve to win. If we make some foul shots and make shots from the floor, we would have won that game. Against Allen, we just ran into a buzzsaw.”

As Jim Thorpe looked to battle back, Northwestern kept its cool and hit 13 of 16 attempts from the foul line in the fourth quarter to put the game away. Without the hot shooting, the Olympians may well have taken the win in that game.

“I was really proud that in the fourth quarter, we shot so well from the foul line, and that’s crucial, because that was a killer for us in the first two games of the year,” said Deutsch. “To step up there, with the game on the line and make the foul shots, was important for us in the fourth quarter.”

Leighanna Lister admits that the practices are tough and that Deutsch doesn’t allow his team to cut any corners, but she believes it’s paying off, especially in closer games like the win over Jim Thorpe.

“We’ve been getting the same shots, but we’ve been finishing them the past three games and that has really made the difference for us,” said Lister, a junior. “Every practice we do foul shots and really put a focus on making our shots from the line.”

It’s worth noting that the fundamentals carry over to the defensive side of the court as well and it’s paying dividends in that manner, too. Jim Thorpe came in averaging just over 68 points per game and even with a late fourth quarter run by the Olympians, Northwestern held them to 45 points on the night.

“We’ve played well on both sides of the ball,” said Deutsch. “Any time that you can hold a team like that to 45 points, you’ve done a good job, because they have the weapons to really put some big numbers on the board.”