So far, the Lady Tigers are not fans of 2026. After a long layoff between games Northwestern opened the new year with two losses, albeit to tough Colonial League opponents.

Matchups against Notre Dame of Green Pond and Wilson have not gone well.

The Notre Dame (8-4 overall, 7-1 Colonial League) defense held Northwestern to a season-low 33 points to send the Tigers home with a 48-33 loss on their record.

Natalie Conner led Northwestern with 12 points. Northwestern scored 14 of its 33 points from the foul line hitting on 14 of their 16 opportunities.

The first home game of the calendar year didn’t go as planned either for Northwestern (9-3, 7-2). Wilson (8-3, 6-3) scored more points against the Tigers than any other team this season in a 59-50 win. Julianna Bonham scored 14 of her game-high 26 points in the second quarter to send Wilson into halftime with a 30-23 lead.

Northwestern only came up with eight points in the third quarter as Wilson stretched its lead to 43-21 and then maneuvered through the final quarter holding onto the lead.

While Bonham was putting up numbers for the Warriors, Conner was back to her usual type of game as she scored 24 points for Northwestern.

In Northwestern’s last win just before Christmas, head coach Chris Deutsch won his 400th game as the Tigers coach. The 400-win mark is uncharted territory for a girls coach in the Colonial League with Deutsch being the first to reach that point.

“What it probably means is that I’m getting old,” quipped Deutsch. “We’ve had a lot of good players in the past and I’ve had a lot of good assistant coaches. My family has made a lot of sacrifices along the way, too. For me, it’s very humbling and when I thought about it that nobody has ever done that in girls basketball in our league and we’ve had some pretty good coaches, it’s a great accomplishment and hopefully I’ll be around for a couple more wins and we can keep it going.”

There are a couple more tough games on the schedule for Northwestern as it travels to Pen Argyl (7-4, 4-4) Thursday and then hosts Salisbury (6-5, 4-4) on Friday. Next week opens with a long drive to Palisades (2-9, 2-7).

The Tigers are third overall in the Colonial League behind Lehighton and Notre Dame. They are trailing Lehighton (11-0, 9-0) in the West Division by two games. The Indians became the first Class 4A team in District 11 to clinch a spot in districts. Northwestern is currently seeded third in the 4A power rankings behind Lehighton and North Schuylkill.