In a regular season game at Salisbury, Cole Dynda’s metal bat snapped in two when he hit a groundball. The image of the broken bat laying on the field while Dynda ran to first may be the cover photo for the Tigers offense this season.

The Tigers came into the Colonial League playoffs knowing they had strong pitching, but unsure of what they could get from their offense.

In the quarterfinals, they found enough offense for a 4-3 win over Palmerton. But in the semifinals, Lehighton left the field at Parkland High School with a 2-0 win and a trip to the league finals.

“Just cut and paste,” said Tiger head coach Brian Polaha after the loss to Lehighton. “Just cut and paste everything I have said all season long and use that. It’s all been the same thing. We can’t get enough hits, and we can’t get the big hit that we need in key spots. It’s the same story.”

CL Semifinal

Lehighton 2, Northwestern 0

Griffin Unrath and Chase Llewellyn were engaged in a pitcher’s duel until the Indians put the scoreboard operator to work in the top of the sixth. It would be Llewellyn who sparked the offense in the top of the sixth with a leadoff double and he scored the first run of the game when Logan Bellis followed with a double to make it 1-0.

Two outs later, it looked like Unrath was going to work out of trouble, but Konner Nalesnik singled on a groundball to left for a 2-0 advantage.

In six of the seven innings, Northwestern Lehigh picked up a two-out hit and in three of those innings, put two runners on with two outs, but were unable to score. They had five innings where they put a runner into scoring position but were unable to get the hit to bring them home.

“I don’t know what it is, but we just don’t get hits in those big spots,” said Polaha. “The only other thing I can try is to shake things up, so we’ll see what happens.”

CL Quarterfinals

Northwestern 4, Palmerton 3

The win over Palmerton in the quarterfinals saw the Tigers get only four hits in the game. Their usually steady offense nearly blew the game for them when a pair of errors led to two unearned runs for the Bombers.

It was a two-out rally that saw Northwestern score all four of their runs against Palmerton. After Cameron Pengelly struck out the first two Tigers hitters, Lucian Sterling reached on an infield single, and Tanner Fronina walked. Freshman catcher Evan Fatzinger singled to left to bring in a run and Luke Marazzo was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Cannon Fitch singled to make it 3-1 and Marazzo then stole home to put the Tigers up 4-1.

Palmerton got a run back in the bottom of the third and then threatened in the seventh. A walk, an error, and a single made it 4-3, but Jesse Neupauer ended the threat by getting a double-play groundball to end the game.

Northwestern (13-9) is currently seeded third in the District 11 4A classification, but if Lehighton (11-11) could jump ahead of them and into the top spot in 4A with a win over Southern Lehigh (17-5) in the league championship game.