It was cold and windy – very windy – at the Northwestern Lehigh sports complex on Tuesday, but softball coach Josh Zimmerman was not impressed with how cold his team played. The Lady Tigers made four errors that resulted in three unearned runs against Pen Argyl, and it is easy to see how those miscues cost them the game.

The Lady Knights (9-2 overall, 7-2 Colonial) came to town and sent 20 batters to the plate over three innings against Northwestern Lehigh (11-2, 8-2), resulting in an 8-6 loss for the home team.

Pen Argyl made one error that resulted in two earned runs against pitcher Jill Bradley, who pitched a complete game, allowing seven hits and seven walks, while striking out seven batters.

“Championship teams don’t make the mistakes that we made today, it’s that simple,” said coach Josh Zimmerman. “I talked to the girls about that, letting them know that they must eliminate the errors and clean up some mental mistakes if they want to pick up wins in the postseason.”

In the first inning, some heads up baserunning resulted in one run when Sage Toman sprinted home from third on a pop-up to first base by Marissa Christman. Toman had walked and advanced to third on two passed balls before scoring on the infield pop, which was not ruled to be an infield fly rule play because the first baseman had to drift into foul territory and because the wind was wreaking havoc on most pop-ups.

The Green Knights erupted for all their runs between the second and fourth innings.

Pen Argyl picked up two in the second inning against starter Peyton Neumoyer on RBI singles from Shea Black and Bradley. Maya Rivera added an RBI single in the third and the Lady Knights picked up five runs in the fourth, chasing Neumoyer from the game.

Pen Argyl spent the inning batting around with Bradley driving in two runs and Andrea Black and Rivera each driving in another run, with the fifth run scoring on an error. Emma Freeman pitched to the last five batters in the inning, giving up two singles and a walk.

Northwestern was also productive in the third and fourth innings when the Tigers sent 14 hitters to the plate, scoring four runs. In the third, Toman led off with her second straight walk ahead of a Rylee McGinley bunt single. One out later, Toman scored on a line drive out to second that was thrown errantly to get McGinley, who had advanced to second on a stolen base. Abby Dunstan drove a groundball single to right field to bring in McGinley and it was tied at 3-3.

The next inning, Northwestern was now down 8-3, but again calmly went to work. Freeman led off with a single lined to left and one out later, was sacrificed to second by McGinley. Izzy Akelaitis banged a double on a long fly ball to center to make it 8-4 and Christman followed with an RBI single to right, making it 8-5. Josephine Wehr and Shelby Mitman walked to load the bases, but Bradley recorded a strike out for the final out in the inning.

The Lady Tigers made Pen Argyl nervous in the seventh when Christman led off with a double to right field and Dunstan followed with an RBI single. Wehr sacrificed Dunstan to second and Bradley retired Mitman on a pop-up to second.

Elizabeth Diehl pinch-hit for Quinn Conrey with a runner on second and two outs and lined a shot to right that appeared destined to go down the line, but first baseman Katie Knecht reacted quickly and picked the ball out of the air less than a foot off the ground to end the game.

“I hope this loss bothers them a little bit,” said Zimmerman. “I believe wholeheartedly that we should have won that game. You can’t give a team that many outs, especially a good team like Pen Argyl. Hats off to them. They kept us off balance and they played well. I still think we did enough to win, but you can’t win a game when you give a team that many outs and make that many errors.

“We are going to regroup, come back and get ready to work and clean up some of the defense. When you put six runs on the board, that’s enough to win a softball game. That just wasn’t enough to win today because of how we played.”

Northwestern suffered their first loss of the season last Monday against Palisades, in a 2-1 game and then bounced back to beat Saucon Valley 12-3 and Wilson 14-5.

McGinley had three hits, scored three times, and drove in a run against Saucon Valley, while Akelaitis and Christman had the big bats in the win over Wilson. Akelaitis had three hits and scored three runs and Christman was 4-for-5 with four runs scored and five driven in with a double and a home run.

Peyton Neumoyer allowed just three unearned runs and threw a complete game in the win over the Panthers. Against Wilson, Freeman allowed two earned runs over six innings and Neumoyer gave up a hit but shut down the Lady Warriors in the seventh.

In the two wins, Northwestern had a combined seven errors.