Northwestern put together hits in six of seven innings against Salisbury Monday night, and the Tigers had at least one base runner in every inning.

But the Tigers were unable to get the big hit to push across a couple of runs.

There were 11 base runners left on base by Northwestern Monday and nine of them were in scoring position. The only run the Tigers scored was an unearned run on a fielding error by the Falcons.

The lack of timely hitting resulted in a 2-1 Salisbury win.

For Northwestern it marked the second straight loss and third in the last four games.

“We had a lot of good at-bats and we needed that, but a lot of strikeouts again,” said Tiger head coach Brian Polaha, whose team struck out seven times. “I just think a lot of guys are putting a little bit too much pressure on themselves.

“I don’t want to take anything away from their pitchers because they did a good job. But some of our guys are hitting, but not with runners on base.”

The Tigers got their run in the sixth inning when Evan Fatzinger was hit by a pitch and Luke Marazzo followed with an infield single. An errant throw put runners on second and third.

Josiah Kuhns came on to relieve starter Garrett Leiner and gave up a sacrifice fly to Cannon Fitch to make it 2-1. Kuhns then got a fly ball to left to end the threat.

Northwestern’s Jake Carson singled with one out in the seventh but was stranded at second.

Salisbury hitters didn’t have much success against Northwestern starter Cole Dynda.

The Falcons didn’t have a runner in scoring position until the fourth inning when Markus Jones stepped to the plate with a runner on first and launched a two-run home run. It was Jones’ second home run of the season.

Dynda gave up a leadoff single in the fifth but retired the next six batters to give the Tigers an opportunity to battle back. Dynda allowed just four hits and a walk over six innings while giving up two earned runs.

“Cole pitched really well and we played good defense,” said Polaha. “We just didn’t get the hit we needed.”

The Northwestern offense managed just five hits against a pair of Pen Argyl pitchers on Saturday in a 4-2 loss to the Green Knights.

Ethan Konyak led the Tigers with two hits in the game and he also drove in one of the runs for Northwestern Lehigh with Marazzo driving in the other.

The dip in offense has been unfortunate because it appeared that things might have been heating up when Northwestern put up six runs to beat Wilson 6-3.

The Tigers picked up 10 hits in that game with Konyak, Carson, Devin Rex, and Tanner Fronina all getting two hits and Fitch driving in two runs with a double.

On the mound, Griffin Unrath threw six innings but with his pitch count at 96, gave way to Carson who pitched the seventh for Northwestern.

Northwestern is in tight races in both the Colonial League and District 11 4A standings.

In league play, Notre Dame – Green Pond and Southern Lehigh are both 7-2. Northwestern, Northern Lehigh, and Jim Thorpe are all 6-3. Plus, there are five more teams all at 4-4 or better in the overall standings with eight teams going to the playoffs.

In District 11 4A, five of the nine teams are all over the .500 mark in districts and all five are within a game of each other.

Most teams have just crossed the midway point of their schedules, and the second half should be a scramble.