Northwestern entered the postseason on an 18-game win streak and extended that number to 25 straight wins heading into the PIAA quarterfinal game against Interboro last week at Boyertown.

The Tigers made it 26 in a row with a 6-4 win over the District 1 champs.

The Buccaneers did not go quietly and caused some uneasy moments for Northwestern fans.

Tiger pitcher Emma Freeman stayed calm and ended the game with a pair of routine ground balls to Lizzie Diehl at second base as the Lady Tigers moved into the semifinal round for the third straight season.

Senior Rylee McGinley showed that good speed and a high softball IQ can cause chaos when she reached base on a single in the first inning.

When Freeman dropped a bunt, McGinley never broke stride rounding second base and made it to third. The throw across the diamond from first was wild and she jumped up and scored to make it 1-0.

“That wasn’t designed or anything,” said McGinley. “We just like to come out and be aggressive. I looked at third and nobody was covering, but the left fielder was coming in toward the bag. I thought I could beat her, so I just kept going.”

Junior catcher Abby Dunstan then sent a flyball to left that landed about 10 feet past the fence for her 11th home run of the year for a 2-0 Northwestern lead.

The Bucs put runners on base with two outs in each of the first two innings and then leadoff hitter Maryanna Nagle drew one of three walks that Freeman issued in the game with one out in the third. From there, the junior pitcher retired six straight and kept Interboro having to work from behind.

Freeman, who reached 500 career strikeouts in the opening round game against Athens, is more than just a pitcher. She and battery mate Dunstan singled and freshman Natalie Conner drove them in with a long flyball that landed in left field for a double.

A fielding error brought home Conner to make it 5-0 and Northwestern looked to be in good shape.

“I just wanted to contribute to the scoreboard in some way,” said Conner, a freshman short-stop with upped her batting average to .478 in the game. “I had two strikes on me, so I just wanted to make contact and make something happen.”

With a hot sun beating down though, the Buccaneers were about to warm up.

Interboro put a runner on second with two outs in the fifth and Nagle lined a shot into the left-center field gap for an RBI double. The leadoff hitter scored when Summer Burrell followed with a single through the middle to make it 5-2.

The bottom of the Northwestern order got into the act in the sixth when number eight hitter Ella Bressi hit a grounder to third and hustled down the line, making third baseman Olivia Bulovas hurry her throw, which got away at first and put Bressi on second.

Lizzie Diehl followed with a double into the left field gap and Northwestern stretched their lead to 6-2.

“We were trying to rally it up again,” said Diehl. “We had a hot start to the game and in that inning, we were just trying to tack more runs on the board and give us a little bit of breathing room. My mental approach was just to come up in swing mode.”

The final inning started in a weird way.

Nagle hit a flyball to center that McGinley came in on and appeared to have caught with a dive forward. Pretty much everyone in the ballpark, including Nagle, thought the ball was caught, but as McGinley rolled, a quick flash of yellow appeared on the ground when the ball came out of the glove.

With Nagle headed back to the dugout, McGinley quickly gathered herself and threw to first, but Nagle had been alerted by players and coaches to head back down the line and reached the bag safely.

Umpires conferred on the legality of Nagle’s move back toward the dugout but allowed the play to stand. A walk, a single, and an error put two more runs on the board and brought the tying run to the plate with a runner on second and one out.

Freeman got the next two hitters to hit routine groundballs to Diehl at second and end the game.