Overnight rain made the field at Wilkes University unplayable for Northwestern Lehigh’s state semifinal game on Monday, so officials scrambled and moved the game to the artificial turf at Hazleton Area High School.

For the first time in the tournament, Northwestern was designated the visiting team by virtue of a pregame coin flip, and that, combined with the change of venue played a role in a 5-4 loss to Valley View for the Lady Tigers, ending their trip through the state tournament in the semifinal round for the third straight season.

For most of the game, the turf didn’t appear to affect either team.

On the final play of the game though, the speed of the turf and the fact that the Cougars were the home team both came into play.

Junior Abbi Call, who will be playing college ball at Clemson, hit a sharp ground ball to third that scooted quickly on the turf and as Sam Boyer turned to make a play on the ball, just the slightest stumble allowed the ball to go through and the winning run to score from second.

The run negated a two-run top of the seventh that Northwestern (26-3) used to tie the game.

Lizzie Diehl, who started a couple rallies for Northwestern in the district semifinals against Tamaqua, did the same thing in the PIAA semis when she dropped a base hit into short left field to open the seventh inning with her team down 4-2.

Diehl was on second with one out when Emma Freeman lifted a flyball to left that looked to be the second out of the inning, but the ball popped out of the glove of left fielder Mady Minelli to put runners on second and third with one out.

After an intentional walk to Abby Dunstan, a wild pitch scored Diehl and a groundout by Natalie Conner tied the game.

Conner played a role in the first run of the game when she led off the second inning with a walk. When Shelby Mitman singled to right, Conner never broke her stride rounding second and the throw to third was wild and went out of play, allowing Conner to score and give Northwestern a 1-0 start.

That was the last time that Northwestern had a lead in the game.

The Cougars banged out four hits in the second with Zoie Krapovich and Emily Moyles driving in runs for a 2-1 lead.

Two innings later, Ainsley Behler singled and Boyer followed with a long flyball to center field that hit at the base of the fence to tie the game.

In the bottom of the inning, a pair of singles and Moyles’ sacrifice bunt put two runners in scoring position for Valley View. Ashlyn Palickar lined a single to center to score both runners and give the Cougars (23-2) their largest lead of the game at 4-2.

Tiger senior Rylee McGinley showed off her speed and defensive abilities in center field when she thwarted a pair of Valley View hitters looking for extra base hits.

The first came when she robbed Cora Castellani of extra bases with a running catch deep into left center field in the first inning. An inning later with two runners on and two outs, McGinley had to go into right-center field to catch a ball hit by Kalli Karwowski that would have scored two runs. McGinley will be attending Notre Dame University on an academic scholarship, but her softball career ended with Northwestern’s loss.

“It’s been the best four years,” said McGinley. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be with any other team. The game didn’t go our way and there were a lot of things contributing to that, but it’s been an amazing four years. We accomplished so much and, most of all, I made a lot of friends and that’s the most important thing.”

Pitcher Emma Freeman controlled the hard-hitting heart of the Cougars’ lineup, but the six through nine hitters went 5-for-11 (.455) with three runs scored and four RBI in the game.

The Tigers stranded seven runners on base with four being left in scoring position, including three runners left on third base.

The biggest missed opportunity came in the second inning when Northwestern loaded the bases with nobody out, but senior pitcher Taylor Cawley stranded all three runners on base.

“I told the girls that I don’t think anything I could say in this moment will take the sting away, not today, not tomorrow, maybe not ever,” said Tiger head coach Kate Farber. “They battled and we were literally one hit away. I think we played better defense than they did. We hit the same, it just came down to that coin flip that made us the away team and gave them last at-bats.”

This season marked the third straight year that Northwestern played in the state semifinals and also marked the first time since 2018 that the program won a District 11 championship.

“We have been scratching and clawing at this forever, and we wanted it really bad, but we came up short,” said Mitman, who is one of two seniors on the roster and will play softball at Penn State Harrisburg next year. “We played really hard, and it was tough to keep our energy up, but we kept fighting.”

Emma Freeman goes right into another run for a championship as a member of the Lehigh Valley Carpenter Cup softball team. Lehigh Valley won last year’s tournament. Freeman was a member of last year’s team and is competing again this season.