ALLENTOWN - It's that time of the summer once again where teams from across the Lehigh Valley and beyond come together and flex their muscles on the basketball courts.

This past week's Stellar "Catch A Rising Star" Basketball Showcase kicked off that two-week stretch of basketball tournaments at Cedar Beach Park in Allentown. Three Times News area teams were represented at Stellar and had successful outings in the four-day event.The Northwestern girls rode the biggest wave of those three teams, advancing to play on Sunday morning. The Lady Tigers won three of their five games played, with Sunday's loss to Allen (43-23) ending their run."I said the goal this week is to keep getting better, to improve and develop our players," head coach Chris Deutsch said. "We're not in a summer league."The Lady Tigers, however, have been staying busy since the end of their winter season. Their offseason thus far has included an AAU stint from March through the last week of May, a team camp at Penn State University, and playing in the Patti Heffner tournament.Playing in Stellar helped Northwestern build their chemistry even more. After opening with a victory against Boyertown's JV team on Friday, the Lady Tigers fell just five points short against a Parkland team (41-36) that advanced all the way to the championship game. That game, as well as the entire slate of contests in the girls' tournament on Saturday, was moved inside to Whitehall High School due to weather implications."Parkland is Parkland," Deutsch said. "They play well together, they shoot the ball well, and they move the ball…We were ahead by one with two minutes left. It was going back and forth, and they just made a couple more plays at the end."That loss didn't define the rest of their stay at Stellar, as Northwestern responded with wins against Upper Perk (40-11) and Boyertown's varsity team (39-28) also on Saturday to advance to Sunday's game against Allen.Winning three games and advancing to Sunday was certainly a plus for Deutsch. But more importantly, he was able to get a better understanding of the Lady Tigers' underclassmen in preparation for the upcoming winter season."We're trying to develop depth right now," Deutsch said. "To me, what we're looking at is to (solidify) the bench. You just don't rely on five or six girls…That's the goal right now, to develop some of these younger girls."Northwestern will play in this week's SportsFest tournament as well.On the boys' side, both Lehighton and Northwestern took the court at Stellar in the hopes of getting as much court time as possible. The Indians, after winning their opening round game against Mahanoy (43-36), suffered back-to-back losses on Saturday at Parkland High School.Lehighton's second loss, a 46-40 defeat to Warren Hills, was in large part due to a late 7-0 spurt from Warren Hills in the second half. Despite Lehighton going on a 9-2 run to open the second half, capped by a Nick Skrinkosky rebound and putback that tied the game at 27-27, Warren Hills was able to make a few more plays down the stretch."We were missing a lot of guys during the course of the summer, so today I was playing everybody and feeling everything out," head coach Rich Oertner said following the Warren Hills game. "We're still out of sorts because a lot of guys missed a lot of summer basketball. They got baseball. They got football."The Indians return just two players that saw meaningful varsity time last year-Andre McDowell (who scored a game-high 11 points against Warren Hills), and Damian Mele. So, Oertner is hoping the team's play in the Stellar Summer League and the tournament will help round out his roster rotation for the winter.The Northwestern boys were pitted against two tough Eastern Pennsylvania Conference teams in the tournament. After a 34-19 loss to Dieruff on Friday, the Tigers fell to eventual champion Pocono Mountain West on Saturday morning to end their stint.WINNERS. ... Allen defeated Parkland for the girls' title, 46-43. Meanwhile, Pocono Mountain West downed Whitehall, 58-50, for the boys' crown.WHAT'S UP NEXT ... The SportsFest "A-Town Throwdown" tournament begins on Thursday and ends on Sunday back at Cedar Beach. Unlike Stellar, however, SportsFest's format will be a pool-style setup with four teams per pool. The winners and select wild cards will advance to a single-elimination tournament on Sunday.