The Lady Rough Riders wrapped up their season on the road at Northwestern Lehigh with a 46-21 loss to the Tigers.

The loss dropped Catasauqua’s season record to 5-17 overall and 3-14 in the Colonial League. It also brought the high school careers of seniors Shaziya Roberts and Madison Hicks to an end.

Roberts finished the game with four points and Hicks drained a long three-pointer to finish the game with three points for Catasauqua. Lexi Rushatz led Catty with 10 points in the game, including all eight of the team’s first half points. Northwestern was led by juniors Ali Lister and Kailyn Jones, with Lister scoring a game-high 12 points and Jones finishing with 10.

“We did a lot of things well tonight and I was happy with the effort, but we just didn’t get some shots to fall,” said coach Mark Seremula. “That’s what’s happened to us a lot this season where we executed but then just didn’t hit the shot or had something happen that we didn’t finish well.”

Rushatz hit a three-pointer with 5:41 left in the first quarter to cut the Lady Tigers lead to 6-3, but Northwestern came right back when Jones connected on a three-pointer of her own. Rushatz hit a foul shot and added two more early in the second quarter before she hit a jumper with 2:58 left in the half, but Northwestern had jumped out to a 23-8 lead.

In the second half, Hicks and Emma Hawk both hit three-pointers for Catasauqua.

Seremula had a young team to work with this season, but saw them develop as the season went along, leaving a lot of hope for the future. In addition to having just two seniors, Catasauqua also had just three juniors on the roster this year.

“Our young players have gotten so much better this season and we’ve got 11 players returning next year, plus we have a middle school team that had a good season, so there’s a lot to be optimistic about,” said Seremula. “The key is just keeping the numbers up because as long as we have a lot of girls coming out for the team, it breeds competition and that’s what helps a program to get better.”

While it’s easy to look at the season and feel some frustration, Seremula believes that there were enough good things going on that it really wasn’t as frustrating as it could have been.

“One of our goals was to double our win total from last year when we won three games and we won five this year,” noted Seremula. “I think for next season when you look at the progress that we made and the fact that the girls will work on things between now and next season and get even better, there’s a lot of hope.”