Northwestern Lehigh had open looks and put up good shots early in its semifinal matchup with Allentown Central Catholic Tuesday night, but the shots just weren’t falling. That led to some frustration and before long, the Tigers were getting impatient and taking ill-advised shots. Add to that some early defensive struggles and it’s a recipe for disaster, which is exactly what happened in the 66-41 loss to the Vikings.

The loss sends the No. 6 seed Tigers into the District 11 Class 4A consolation game Friday night at Freedom High School where they’ll face No. 4 Wilson, who fell to top seed Bethlehem Catholic in the other semifinal game.

A three-pointer by Sam Vaughn just 22 seconds into Tuesday’s game put the No. 2 seed Vikings up 8-0 and led Northwestern coach Billy Hallman to call a timeout.

“I told our guys ‘you’re making the shots, they’re just not falling. Don’t panic, if those shots are there all night, we’re going to be fine,’” he said.

Northwestern put some points on the board and seemed to be climbing back until Nick Filchner and Chad Kratzer hit back-to-back three-pointers and by the end of the first quarter, Central Catholic held a 25-8 advantage. From there, the Northwestern defense, which seemed to be a step or two behind the Vikings, started to settle in and contain the big play offense of Central Catholic. The only problem was that the shots still weren’t falling for Northwestern.

Northwestern moved to within 13 early in the third quarter, but the Vikings again went to work and when Filchner hit a pair of three-pointers, the writing started to appear on the wall.

The Tigers again looked to rally in the final quarter, but Central Catholic turned aside the uprising and went on to take the win and a spot in the District 11 championship game Friday night.

Filchner finished with a game-high 19 points for the Vikings, with Kratzer finishing with 13. Devin Thomas led Northwestern with 14 points and Deven Bollinger had 12.

It was a different story last Friday night when Northwestern downed Tamaqua 68-55 in their quarterfinal matchup at Martz Hall in Pottsville. The Tigers fell behind early in that game, but battled back to take over the contest.

It looked early on like Tamaqua junior Luke Gregoire was going to carry the Blue Raiders as he cut through the lane time after time to score 11 first quarter points for Tamaqua. During a time-out, Bollinger decided he wanted a crack at guarding Gregoire and Hallman gave him the job. While Gregoire still picked up his points – a game-high 26 to be exact – he had to work much harder for the points and seven of his final 11 points came on foul shots.

“Deven stepped up and he said he wanted to guard him, so we tried that,” said Hallman. “He made him work for every point and I think he wore down later in the game and wasn’t as effective.”

The high scorer for Northwestern against Tamaqua was junior Sean McCann, who was once again dialed in from beyond the arc, nailing four three-pointers and three of his four foul shots to finish with 15 points on the night. Thomas finished with 14, Sam Yadush had 12 and both Seyfried and Bollinger had 11.