With the potential of having their high school basketball careers come to an end, the Northwestern Lehigh seniors banded together to lead their team to a 68-55 win over Tamaqua in the District 11 quarterfinals, which guaranteed the Tigers a spot in the PIAA tournament and the chance to play at least three more high school games.

With Tamaqua coming out and driving to an early lead, Northwestern started to get back on its heels a little. A defensive adjustment ealry in the game helped to plug a hole that had been exploited by the Blue Raiders and the Tiger seniors started to take over from there.

Northwestern senior Devin Thomas got into early foul trouble and had three fouls by halftime. With Thomas getting added time out of the game, fellow senior Sam Seyfried checked in and picked up the slack with nine points in the second half. Meanwhile, Sam Yadush, another senior, was the spark plug for Northwestern, staying active on both ends of the court.

“I came into this game really wanting a lot of time and because it’s such a big game, the biggest game of my basketball career,” said Seyfried. “I’ve been in these situations for soccer and I wanted the chance to come out and show what I could do and I was glad that I got to play a little bit so I could show that.”

While Seyfried is used to playing in Hershey for state soccer titles, the journey there in basketball feels a little different to him.

“It’s a lot different for basketball,” he said. “I feel like there’s a lot of hype around it and it just feels a little bit bigger.”

“Sam Seyfried came back into the lineup for us tonight and definitely helped to take over the floor,” said Yadush. “It was a situation where Devin [Thomas] got into foul trouble in the first half, but Sam played great and Devin came back in the second half and was a little fresher for us, so it all worked out.”

Thomas returned and didn’t pick up his fourth foul until late in the game and was able to finish with 14 points against Tamaqua.

The fact that it could have been his final high school game wasn’t lost on him as the team made the trip to Pottsville.

“It was definitely in the back of our heads that we were in that spot where if we lost tonight, it was all over,” Thomas said. “There’s no way we were ready to let this end yet and we all just pulled together to take over this one tonight. Now we get to keep playing and go after a district title and onto states.”

Northwestern hadn’t won a district playoff game since 2008 and hasn’t been to states in basketball since 1998. Prior to facing Tamaqua, the team heard from one of the players from that 1998 team about the feeling of representing Northwestern Lehigh High School in the PIAA tournament.

“I know for me, it really kind of sank in,” said Seyfried. “Just thinking that this would have been our last game if we didn’t win tonight really hit home with us.”

While the seniors took over the game, it was junior Sean McCann who led the team with 15 points in the win over Tamaqua. The irony of that was not lost on coach Billy Hallman.

“The seniors really made a statement in this game for us tonight,” he said. “They’re not ready for this thing to end. As good as they were though and as much of a role as they played, our younger guys stepped up and we got some big contributions from juniors like Bollinger and McCann.

“Conner Snyder came in and provided some toughness for us, too, which was an important part of the win.”