Watson Church and Nolan Fitzgerald both played key roles for Northwestern Lehigh in the Colonial League baseball quarterfinals on Saturday. The pair went 3-for-4 at the plate with Church contributing on the mound and Fitzgerald throwing in a defensive gem in right field.

After falling behind early, the Tigers stayed calm and relied on pitching and baseball instincts to come back from a 3-0 deficit and advance to the semifinals with a 5-4 win over Bangor.

Starter Aidan Freeman allowed a three-run triple from Bangor’s Gianni Goodrich in the first inning.

Bangor’s Gino Merlo also had trouble getting hitters out and Northwestern took advantage.

Cannon Fitch singled and eventually scored to make it 3-1 in the bottom of the first inning.

Fitzgerald led off the bottom of the second with a single and moved to third on a single by Shane Hulmes. Fitzgerald scored on Brady Zimmerman’s infield single. Hulmes scored the tying run on an errant Slater throw to make it 3-3.

Freeman had settled in well on the mound and got help when Fitzgerald tracked down a long fly ball to the right field fence in the third inning and tumbled over the fence to make the catch.

“It was going back further than I thought it would,” he said. “I just kept going to try to make a play on it. I was kind of lucky that we have a temporary fence out there because it didn’t hurt like it would have running into a regular fence.”

Goodrich broke the 3-3 tie with a double an infield single put runners on first and third before Freeman got the final out of the inning to keep Bangor’s lead at 4-3. In the sixth, Freeman walked two hitters and Church moved to the mound and pitched around the danger with two strikeouts in the inning.

Baseball instincts kicked in for Northwestern in the bottom of the sixth as Church led off with an infield single and was bunted to second by Josh Farber. Fitzgerald was hit by a pitch and Freeman hit into a fielder’s choice to put runners on first and third.

Brady Krimmel came on to run at first and stole second, and on the next pitch, Merlo threw a pitch in the dirt that skipped past catcher Tyler Balok. As soon as Church saw the ball get away, he took off for home and Balok hurried a throw to the plate that Merlo was unable to come up with. Krimmel saw the play ahead of him and never broke stride to score the go-ahead run as Church scampered out of the way.

“Coach always taught us that if it’s behind you and you think you can get there, go,” said Church. “I knew I was there, and Brady Krimmel came up big to get that extra run. I thought he was going to get held up and didn’t think he was coming, so I thought ‘I gotta get out of here.’”

With a one-run lead, Church struck out two more hitters in the seventh to preserve the 5-4 win.