After dropping its first two games of the season, Northwestern has fired back with three straight convincing wins.

The latest Tiger victory was a 52-45 non-league decision over highly-touted Jim Thorpe on Thursday.The Lady Tigers got off to a strong start, including getting Jim Thorpe standout Kayley Kovac and her sister Peyton into early foul trouble. By the end of the first quarter, Northwestern had taken an 11-4 lead, but that didn't mean that things were going to go easily for the Tigers for the rest of the night."When they were both in foul trouble so early, that was a key for us," said Northwestern's Leighanna Lister, who helped the Tigers control rebounds and start the transition game.After Northwestern (3-2) opened its lead to 13-4 early in the second quarter, Jim Thorpe mounted a comeback when Payton Kovac hit back-to-back three-pointers, followed by a three-pointer from Natalia Richards to tie the game at 15 with 5:16 left in the first half. The Tigers quickly bounced back and regained their edge, holding a 20-15 lead at halftime."We felt pretty good about where we were at half," said coach Northwestern coach Chris Deutsch. "We knew Jim Thorpe wasn't going to quit, but we played well and were doing the right things, so it was more a matter of just being able to keep doing what we were doing."Both teams had momentum swings through the third quarter, but Northwestern extended its lead to 32-23 going into the fourth quarter.Just as Deutsch predicted, however, the Olympians (2-1) started to mount a comeback.A minute into the final quarter, Kayley Kovac scored her second basket in under a minute and cut the lead to 32-27, but once again the Lady Tigers regained control. Just as Jim Thorpe seemed to again be building momentum, Kovac was called for her fifth foul with 5:33 left in the game and Olympian head coach Rob Kovac was called for a technical foul.Sage Christopher hit two free-throws and stretched the lead to 36-29.Just over a minute later, Payton Kovac also fouled out and Northwestern quickly stretched its lead to a game-high 12 points.Jim Thorpe went into foul mode in an attempt to lengthen the game and stage a comeback. But the Tigers made sure that plan wouldn't succeed by hitting 14-of-17 free throws down the stretch to put the game out of reach."I thought we did really well against the Kovac girls, because they can really hurt you, but we played them tough," said Deutsch. "It didn't hurt that they got into foul trouble pretty early, but even when Kayley fouled out, they didn't stop, they were battling with everything they had right up to the buzzer."SLOW DOWN ... Northwestern's defense didn't shut Jim Thorpe down, but it certainly slowed down the high-octane Olympian attack. Thorpe had scored 137 points (68.5 point per game) in its first two games of the season, but were held in check by a tenacious Northwestern defense. The Tigers also controlled the boards.BUSY TIGERS ... The win wraps up a stretch of five games in seven days for Northwestern, which now has five days off until it meets Southern Lehigh."It will be nice to have a little time off now, but we came through this stretch in pretty good shape, so we can take a breath," said Lister. "We got over those two quick losses and now, we're really playing well and are looking forward to the rest of the season."TOP GUNS ... Northwestern's Christopher led all scorers with 20 points. Kayley Kovac had 12 points for the Olympians.JIM THORPERichards 1-0-0-3, P. Kovac 3-0-2-8, Condly 0-0-0-0, Ohl 2-0-1-4, Naranjo 3-0-0-6, K. Kovac 5-2-7-12, Lignore 2-3-3-7, Gabel 1-0-0-2 TOTALS: 17-5-13-45NORTHWESTERNStitzel 1-0-0-2, Hambrick 0-0-0-0, Lister 1-1-1-3, Chisdak 2-5-5-9, Sevrain 4-4-6-12, Williamson 0-3-4-3, Christopher 8-4-6-20, Sekerak 1-1-2-3 TOTALS: 17-18-24-52Jim Thorpe 4 11 8 22 - 45Northwestern 11 9 12 20 - 52Three-pointers: Jim Thorpe - Richards 2, P. Kovac 2, ; Northwestern - none