On Friday night, the 18-2 Nazareth girls basketball team came to town to take on the 17-3 Konkrete Kids. The Blue Eagles came away with a 51-47 win that clinched the Skyline Division title.

Northampton fell behind 17-11 after the first quarter and it seemed like the game might become a replay of the teams’ earlier meeting where Nazareth won 51-30.

The Kids were struggling to score inside against Blue Eagles’ center Talya Brugler, but hit a trio of threes in the second quarter to keep the game within reach at halftime, 29-22.

Just before halftime, a raucous Pete Schneider Gymnasium went silent as junior captain Morgan Sterner dropped to the court clutching her knee. After a visit from the trainer and a timeout, she went back out without missing any time.

Head coach Jeff Jacksits marveled at her toughness.

“Give Morgan credit, she was playing on one leg out there the whole second half after she got hurt,” Jacksits said. “She said, ‘I’m not coming out, I’m not coming out.’”

In the third quarter, Northampton did most of its damage from the free throw line, going 5 for 5 on the way to cutting the Nazareth advantage to 39-34 going into the final period.

Neither team made a sustained run in the fourth quarter. Grace Lesko hit a three from the corner with a minute left in the game to cut the deficit to 4. Northampton was unable to capitalize on some shaky Nazareth free throw shooting down the stretch. Taylor Kranzley made a free throw with 51 seconds left to make it a one-score game, but that was the last point for the Kids.

Lesko led the team with 17 points on 5 for 6 shooting. Kylie Gilliard had 10 points. Devyn Demchak added 8. Kranzley had 7 and Sterner finished with 5.

Sterner appears to be OK heading into the postseason. She scored a game-high 19 points to lead the Kids to a 42-40 victory over Central Catholic in the final game of the regular season on Monday.

Northampton finished the regular season with an 18-4 mark, 12-4 in the EPC.

Next up for the K-Kids is the EPC tournament, which starts Friday. While the brackets have not been released as of this writing, it looks like Northampton will be the 5 seed and travel to Freedom to play the fourth-seeded Patriots. Freedom won the teams’ earlier matchup 45-37.

If the Kids advance to the semifinals, they would most likely face an undefeated Bethlehem Catholic team at 7:30 at the PPL Center on Tuesday.