Most of the Northern Lehigh field hockey team's practices are spent working on penalty corners.

In Monday's Colonial League showdown with Palmerton, the end result of a 2-1 victory for the Bulldogs showed why head coach Jess Frew has every reason to do so.It wasn't until the second half however, that those dividends started to pay off.Northern Lehigh went on to capitalize offensively on two of its seven corners and then were able to hold the Blue Bombers to a single goal on nine corners. Eight of them came over the final nine minutes of play."Realistically, the game is pretty much won and lost in corners," Frew said. "That's why so much time in practice is spent on them because one team is always at an advantage - it's five on nine. So, you should score on a corner."In turn, you really need to avoid getting any corners defensively."After what turned out to be a scoreless first half, the Bulldogs' Samantha Wanamaker produced the game's first goal seven-minutes and 10-seconds into the final half. Nonetheless, the goal developed off a Bulldogs' corner, which was the second one of the half and third of the game.After the Bombers fought hard to possess the ball for nearly the next 10 minutes, it was the Bulldogs who once again set themselves for success on yet another corner.With 9:33 left in the game, Kass Beller, who initiated all the Bulldogs' corners, sent the ball to Britani Pristash out on the left-side of the circle. Pristash set herself and soon rifled the ball past the Bombers' keeper Taylor Hirocheck on the left side. Beller was credited with the assist.After reeling off five consecutive corners over a span of three minutes of play, the Blue Bombers were finally able to find a hole to get the ball past the Bulldogs' keeper Veronica Green.After a hassle in front of the NL cage, Paige Frantz made the Bombers' seventh shot of the game a lucky one.With 4:59 left in the game, Frantz found a way to spoil a potential third shutout on the season for Green by poking the ball to the back right side of the cage.It was the six other opportunities before Frantz's shot that made it easy for head coach Tammy Muniz to say what ruined the day for Palmerton."The tough thing with us was that we just couldn't finish our play," Muniz said. "We just couldn't get enough shots off. If I go back and look at my stats, the shots just aren't there. So, we really need to work on the plays."We just couldn't finish our plays off offensively. So, I think that's what took it away from us."PINK OUT ... With October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Blue Bombers garnered everything pink - warm ups, wrist bands, socks and even some players had pink mouth pieces. The Palmerton Area High School grounds crew even took it a step further and layed out a pink ribbon design in the middle of the playing field for the day of the game against Northern Lehigh.OH SO CLOSE ... Northern Lehigh owned four of six shots taken on goal in a scoreless first half. Palmerton however had the best chance of scoring on one of their two attempts. The Bulldogs' keeper Veronica Green blocked the Blue Bombers' Trisha Billig's attempt to push a penalty stroke past her with 6:04 left in the opening half.SHARING THE WEALTH ... The Bulldogs haven't scored a lot this season as they have 14 goals over the span of 12 games. But, when they do, it's usually someone different than the game before. Seven different players - Madison Bellesfield (four goals), Britani Pristash (three), Kass Beller (two), Taylor Herman (two), Cheyenne Mazzocca (one), Rebecca Barley (one) and Sam Wanamaker (one) - have accounted for the Bulldogs' goals. "Honestly, there hasn't been that one go-to scorer this year. It is really refreshing and really nice because others teams can't look and say, 'Oh, so-and-so is their go-to player.' In this case, this year, it's been everyone who has been pitching in with goals."