Playing Southern Lehigh twice in four days, Catasauqua’s boys’ basketball took advantage to clean up some mistakes after their first meeting to bolster their second one in the opening-round of the Colonial league playoffs.

In either case, the Rough Riders (18-5) posted a pair of victories, the latter one a 62-47 victory that lifted them into the league semifinals against Notre Dame (21-2) Tuesday evening.

“Even though we played a bit sloppy on Tuesday (first game against Southern Lehigh), we played a whole lot better on Friday night (second game),” said Roughies head coach Eric Snyder. “We were two points away from the mercy rule in the third quarter and just didn’t get those two points so we had to play the whole second half normal time, but the kids shared the ball. We had five guys in double figures, all of our starters scored in double figures.”

In their lone meeting this season, Notre Dame downed Catasauqua, 73-63, on Dec, 19. During last season’s league quarterfinals, Catty edged Notre Dame, 69-66.

Snyder recalled the unusual circumstances during their first meeting.

“We buried my mom and her funeral services were all that day,” noted Snyder. “We went right from the funeral service to the afterward meal to the game, so it was a weird day that day.

“But we’re looking forward to this meeting.”

Snyder and his team are confident, but they know they have their work cut out for them. The Crusaders’ Justin Manning, Cody Driscoll, Drew Boyd, and Tommy Murphy will present a combined major challenge.

“Notre Dame is very good,” stressed Snyder. “Manning can shoot from 30 feet, but they’re beatable. We can’t let Boyd go left on us, and he’s dangerous.

“Murphy is a 6-1 sophomore, and he’s tough. He can go inside or outside and Driscoll who’s 6-3, hangs around the basket and gets a lot of, for lack of a better word, garbage points.

“But they’re fast and quick. So it’ll be interesting.”

Leading scorer Frankie Pujols expected to see some changes in the game at Whitehall Tuesday night.

“Both teams have increased their game and improved since the last time we played each other,” said Pujols. “Our team is playing great right now, and we have been since after the new year.

“We all have been working together, and we have built up our chemistry. We had to get over our third-quarter drought, and I think we did that in our last couple of games.”