Thursday night's Colonial League soccer contest between Northwestern and Palmerton featured two opposing programs facing their own form of adversity.

Despite being at different points in their seasons, both teams walked off the field with a sense of satisfaction after the Tigers held off Palmerton, 5-2.Emily Renner and Sara Hathaway both scored two goals for the Tigers.After losing much of their highly-touted offense from a season ago, the Tigers have been able to find their replacements quickly and efficiently. Their only loss thus far is to a strong Saucon Valley team.Northwestern coach Kelly Bleam remains hard at work trying to develop the youthful lineup into a contender."I thought tonight was a great game overall," Bleam said. "Palmerton has great team speed and does some things really well, so the game had great flow to it. It really is a full team effort on our part, especially in a year where we're rebuilding a lot."The Bombers were coming off a miserable outing against Bangor in which they darted out to a 2-0 lead only to see the Slaters rattle off nine unanswered goals."It was a great game and obviously you want to win every game, but when you consider we were going up against a perennial contender like Northwestern, I thought we played well," said Palmerton coach Nate Petrosky. "We played hard and coming off that loss to Bangor, where it seemed we might have given up a little, to see the girls come out and fight like they did, it's huge for us. It reminds them that we are a strong program."Throughout the first half, Northwestern maintained an edge to build a 2-0 intermission lead. Renner converted on a penalty kick to open the scoring. Eventually teammate Sara Hathaway added another off an assist from Margaret Motolese.Not far into the second half, Abigail Chisdak scored unassisted for a 3-0 lead, and it looked like the Tigers were cruising.However, the Blue Bombers received a breath of life when Monica Wood belted a penalty kick into the low left corner of the goal to get her team on the scoreboard.Momentum switched hands at that point as less than two minutes later, Palmerton's Johanna Matsko found the twine on a breakaway that made things interesting with 15:54 remaining in the game."Palmerton was very quick tonight and moved very fast to the ball, Their movement was great," Renner said. "In the second half, we might have had a little slip-up, but we came back and I knew we would be fine."The calmness of Renner eventually paid off as she and Hathaway added goals shortly afterward to secure the Northwestern victory."We look at re-creating and that has been our focus so far this season," Bleam said. "Who we are and what we are now is so different from who we were and what we were last year, so I want the girls to forget about past laurels and focus on what goals we can accomplish now."EYE OF THE TIGER. ... Northwestern managed a 12-5 advantage in shots with five of them finding the back of the net.WHERE DO WE STAND? ... As a result of the game, Northwestern improves to an impressive 8-1 mark on the season, while the Lady Bombers fall to 4-4.