A pair of tough games against East Penn Conference opponents sent the Tiger boys lacrosse team to two straight losses this past week.

The season is winding down and Northwestern Lehigh is still fighting to secure a spot in districts as it goes into its final five games of the season.

After a 14-5 loss to Easton, Tiger head coach Marcus Janda eyed the game against Nazareth, who defeated his team 7-6 in the third game of the season. For Janda, the game would be somewhat of a mile marker to gauge just where his team is at as crunch time begins.

“It’s a step back,” said Janda, whose team lost to the Eagles 11-6 at home in the latest meeting. “We scored six last time and couldn’t improve on that this time around and we gave up 11. We didn’t show any offensive improvement, and we gave up too many possessions and they turned those into goals.”

Northwestern (7-6) came out being the aggressors, but as the game wore on the Blue Eagles began to take control of the play on the field and Nazareth went on to score six of the last seven goals in the game to beat the Tigers on their own turf.

One of the keys was faceoffs.

Northwestern won a majority of the faceoffs early and it gave the Tigers a possession advantage that helped stake them to a 3-1 lead by the end of the first quarter.

In the second half, Nazareth was the aggressor on faceoffs and took a 5-4 lead with 10:07 left in the third quarter. The Tiger defense was putting on a clinic early but as the game continued Nazareth was able to wear down the defense to get some open looks at the goal.

“We started to lose the faceoff battle in the second half and that was something that we were able to control in the first half,” said Janda. “That led to extra possessions for their team and they’re a talented group, especially on offense. Defensively, I don’t have guys on the bench, so I had six guys out there playing a heck of a lot of defense and eventually, fatigue settled in, and we had some breakdowns.”

Northwestern picked up an early goal when freshman Kendall Wikert fired a laser from 15 yards out for a 1-0 lead. At the other end, goalie Dane Kauker stopped Ryan Kane, who had worked his way around the goal for a point-blank shot that Kauker simply scooped up for the stop.

Nazareth got a goal to tie the game with 4:34 left in the first on Owen Hanzl’s 32nd goal of the season.

From there, a pair of defensive plays led to Northwestern goals.

First, Michael Lagowy worked around a Nazareth defender to field a ball at midfield and then spin around for a breakaway toward the net. Lagowy put a shot on goal that sailed past goalie Nathaniel Orlando for a 2-1 lead.

Tyler Kaas then intercepted a pass and decided not to wait for reinforcements, racing his way to the goal to beat Orlando for a 3-1 edge. The goal was Kaas’ 28th of the season.

The second quarter had a different feel as Nazareth started to work its offense more patiently to find opportunities.

Three different players picked up goals in the period while the Nazareth defense shut down the Tigers offense and gained its first lead of the game at 4-3 with just :39 before halftime.

The difference in faceoffs became more apparent in the third quarter and Nazareth stretched its advantage to 5-3 before Northwestern fought its way back to tie the game on goals by Josh Wambold and Wikert, who scored his 20th of the season with 8:06 left in the third quarter.

The Blue Eagles controlled the game in the final quarter as Ryan Kane got his third goal of the night and Nazareth outscored Northwestern 4-1 in the quarter with a low shot from 20-yards out from Kaas being the only goal the Tigers would add in the loss.

“You can’t give teams like Nazareth an opening to go through,” said Janda. “We saw that today where one part of our game started to struggle, and they took advantage of that and it made everything we tried to do more difficult.”

Playing Easton (17-0) and Nazareth (11-5) on back-to-back days is a tough task and the schedule doesn’t let up very much. Moravian Academy (7-5) completes the trifecta of tough games for Northwestern when they come to Tiger Stadium Thursday.