Despite having some time off between its last regular season game and the Colonial League semifinals, the Northwestern baseball team didn’t show signs of rust in its postseason opener last week against Southern Lehigh.

Northwestern pitcher Carter Welch allowed just two hits and got run support from his teammates in a 6-1 win over the Spartans at Lehigh County Community College.

After allowing a hit in the first, Welch didn’t let up another hit until the seventh, helping the Tigers advance them to the league championship game where they fell to Notre Dame (Green Pond).

In the first inning of last Wednesday’s semifinal, it looked as if the Spartans were going to have some success against Welch, who came into the game with an unbeaten record. Dalton Musselman started the inning by reaching on an error and Chris Andrews then singled knocking in Musselman.

But Welch settled in after that. A base running mistake by Andrews in the next at bat gave the Tigers their first out of the inning and after Welch walked the number three hitter, he got cleanup hitter Colin Houck to hit into a double play.

After the shaky first, Welch retired the next 12 batters.

“It’s going to take a special effort from a special team to beat him with the way he’s pitching right now” said Tiger head coach Duran Porrino. “He works fast, he pounds the zone and he keeps batters off balance. He’s just a stud. He hadn’t allowed a run in his last four starts leading up to this and the run they got tonight was unearned, so that’s five straight starts without letting up an earned run. He’s been a bulldog for us.”

With Welch taking care of business on the mound it was up to Northwestern’s lineup to get the job done at the plate, which it did by getting 10 hits and six runs on the afternoon.

The key for the Tigers was the second inning. Trailing by one, Northwestern took advantage of two errors by Southern Lehigh to score two runs, before Derek Holmes knocked in the third run of the inning with an RBI single.

The big third gave the Tigers a 3-1 lead, handing Welch even more confidence from the mound.

“One through nine I’m just really confident in our lineup,” said Porrino. “We know game in and game out that we’re going to get guys on base with the way we hit the ball. We’re just locked in right now. And I always want to give as much credit as I can to our hitting coach Josh Perich. He does everything with our hitters. He was a professional hitter who was drafted (by the Mets), coached at Lehigh. Our guys have really learned a lot from him and are executing, working counts and getting on base.”

Derek Holmes and Justin Holmes each came through with three hits in the win. Rafe Perich and Welch added RBIs on the day.

For the season, Welch, a sophomore has struck out 56 and walked just eight batters.