The Tigers needed a win badly. While the season is still young, there’s never a good time for a three-game losing streak and last week’s visit to Salisbury was an opportunity to keep that skid from reaching four games.

First-year Northwestern head baseball coach Bob Fatzinger gave the ball to his ace, Mason Vogwill. The senior pitched six solid innings, scattering eight hits while striking out three through six innings as his team posted an 8-3 win.

“He got the ball when we needed a win and I’m happy for him,” said Tyler Schreiner, who had a big day at the plate against Salibsury. “I think today was our first positive step forward so hopefully we can build on that.”

The only trouble Vogwill got into during the game was giving up a pair of hits to start the sixth inning, allowing one run. The Tigers should have been out of the inning but a pair of errors kept the Falcons alive and allowed two more runs across.

“He’s been throwing well,” said Fatzinger. “We haven’t been playing the best defense and that’s cost us. Today we put together a pretty good game. We swung the bat a little better today.”

Both teams were looking to snap losing streaks as the Falcons came in on a four-game skid and sent their best pitcher to the mound looking to get out of their funk. But it was Northwestern that got into the win column.

“The past few games we dropped were all mental mistakes, errors that we had to work on in practice,” said Vogwill. “Today we didn’t make as many errors. We swung the bats well today and put some runs on the board.”

Vogwill had the benefit of pitching with a lead as the Tigers were ahead by the time he took the mound in the bottom of the first inning.

Northwestern got a run in the top of the first when the Schreiner brothers, Tyler and Trevor, hit back to back doubles for a 1-0 lead. They went up 2-0 in the third inning when Austin Stasko struck out but reached base on a passed ball. He eventually scored on a fielder’s choice.

“We aren’t making any plays at crucial times,” said Salisbury head coach Mike Pochron. “And every time we make a mistake it scores. That’s the way it seems. We should have a 1-2-3 inning, we get a ground ball, we get an errant throw and that guy ends up scoring.”

Northwestern got another run in the fifth inning when Stasko reach based on an infield single before scoring on Tyler Schreiner’s single to left field.

“We put our heads together at practice yesterday and we said we’ve got to swing and can’t keep taking pitches,” said Tyler Schreiner, who went 3-for-4 with two RBIs. “We proved today that it worked.”

The Tigers blew the game open in the sixth inning.

Zach Stanley, Isaac Fatzinger, Derek Holmes and Deven Bollinger hit consecutive singles to push across a three runs. After an error should have gotten Salisbury starter Andrew Sukanick out of the inning, the Tigers added one more on a Tyler Schreiner single to right field.

The Falcons (2-4, 2-4) scored three runs on three hits, an error and a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the sixth before Vogwill pitched out of the jam.

The Tigers tacked on a run in the seventh on an RBI single from Holmes.

Freshman Deven Bollinger got the ball for the seventh inning and closed out the win for Northwestern. He allowed an early single but then struck out two of the next three batters.

Northwestern (3-4 overall, 2-3 Colonial League) went on to beat Wilson on Thursday before falling to Blue Mountain in a nonleague game Saturday.

The Tigers started this week with a pair of wins Monday and Tuesday. They opened the week with a 5-4 win over Saucon Valley in which they scored a pair of seventh-inning runs after the Panthers had gone ahead with two runs in the top of the seventh.

Tuesday against rival Northern Lehigh, the Tigers got a three-hit pitching effort from Andrew White to hold off the Bulldogs 2-0.