April, and the weather, have not been kind to Northwestern Lehigh on the softball field.

The month opened with a nonleague loss to Kutztown. After defeating Northern Lehigh on Monday, the Tigers came back the next day and dropped a tough 5-2 game to Notre Dame (Green Pond).

Against Kutztown, Ella Bressi and Emma Freeman, the top two hitters in the order, both had three hits with Bressi scoring two runs and Freeman scoring a run and adding two RBI. Molly Schlofer also had three hits in the game and Sam Boyer had a single and a double and scored a run.

Northwestern Lehigh came out to cold, windy conditions on Monday and did all of the right things as they defeated rival Northern Lehigh 5-2. The team clicked both offensively and defensively and their pitching did a good job of limiting the Bulldogs offense to get the win.

Pitcher Emma Freeman wasn’t as dominant as usual and allowed a runner into scoring position in each of the five innings that she pitched.

The key was that between her pitching and solid defensive plays, the Bulldogs weren’t able to bring those runners in as often as they would have liked.

In the first inning, Freeman got a ground ball right back to her to get out of the jam, the second inning was a ground ball to third where Sam Boyer just had to field the ball and step on third to force the runner.

In the third, back-to-back singles put runners on the corners, and a sacrifice fly from Addie Smith got the first run of the game for Northern Lehigh to make it a 2-1 game. Some strong defense did the trick in the fourth when a ground ball to Boyer at third was played easily to first for the second out of the inning and as Savannah Kast broke for home, first baseman Molly Schlofer fired home to get Kast at the plate.

In the fifth, Freeman gave up a leadoff double to Kenzie Chrusical and then easily set down the next three hitters.

Northwestern had taken a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second. With runners on second and third, Lily Kinnon hit a ground ball back to the circle that brought in one run and Boyer followed with a line drive to right field that rolled for a triple.

“I knew I had a runner on base, and I really wanted to drive in runs to set a tone early in the game,” said Boyer. “I got in the box and saw a pitch that I knew I could really drive and I was able to get a triple out of it and bring in a run.”

After the Bulldogs got their third inning run, Northwestern followed with two in the bottom of the inning. It started with a one-out single by Freeman and an RBI double by Natalie Conner that made it 3-1 and Ainsley Behler hit a grounder to second that brought in another run for a 4-1 lead.

Kinnon led off the sixth with a single to left and went to second on a sacrifice from Boyer. Avery Seyler put runners on the corners with a single, and Ella Bressi added an insurance run with a groundball through the middle for an RBI single and a 5-1 lead.

Behler pitched the final two innings and gave up an unearned run but allowed no hits or walks and struck out five.

“She gives us a little different look,” said Northwestern head coach Kate Farber. “She’s a lefty and she’s got some good velocity and gets a lot of movement on her ball. She is just a totally different look than Emma or Lizzie (Diehl).”

The schedule doesn’t wait for warmer weather, and the Tigers were back on the field Tuesday at Notre Dame (Green Pond) and trailed 7-0 through five innings.

An error opened the door for Northwestern in the bottom of the fifth when Boyer reached base to open the inning. With runners on first and second, Bressi reached on a bunt single and on the play to first, Boyer came in to score. With bases loaded, a fielder’s choice brought in the second run and an RBI single by Dunstan made it 7-3. Behler continued to swing a hot bat and tripled to bring in two more runs and cut the Crusaders lead to 7-5.

Northwestern couldn’t pull any closer over the final two innings.