(EDITOR’S NOTE: The Times News will be running a series of stories asking area coaches and athletic directors to recall their “Most Memorable” sporting event. Today’s Most Memorable moment comes from Northwestern girls basketball coach Chris Deutsch.)

By Chuck Hixson

tnsports@tnonline.com

Ron D’Argenio spent four seasons as the girls’ basketball coach at Northwestern Lehigh and had the team headed in the right direction.

When he resigned following the 2002-03 season, Chris Deutsch - who had been an assistant with the boys team - took the reins and has remained the coach ever since.

In each of Deutsch’s first two seasons, the team went to the postseason, making six straight District 11 Tournament appearances. In 2005, Deutsch’s second season, the team lost to North Schuylkill in the district finals.

It would be the following season that gave Deutsch his favorite moment as a coach.

To put it simply, the 2005-06 version of the Tigers was loaded. They featured three players - seniors Dana Stellar and Caitlin Miller and junior Allison Horn - who would all go on to finish their high school careers with over 1,000 points.

The team plowed through the regular season, and grabbed the Colonial League championship in heroic fashion, beating Pen Argyl in overtime. The Tigers overcame a 10-point deficit with just 2:30 left in regulation when Ashley Dymond capped off the comeback by draining a three-pointer in the final seconds to send the game to overtime, where Northwestern locked up the win.

In those days, Pine Grove was the team to beat. The Cardinals held 16 district championships overall, with 12 titles in the 20 seasons preceding the 2006 tournament.

Thanks to their status as league champions, the Tigers went into the District 11 2A playoffs as the top-seed, with Pine Grove entering as the No. 2 seed. The two teams worked their way through their respective brackets and wound up meeting each other for the district title at historic Martz Hall in Pottsville.

“The girls team was pretty good, and the school really got behind them. We always had a huge student section and the girls would run onto the court through the student section, and it was great,” said Deutsch. “We would pack the gym at home, and our fans really followed us on the road.

“Martz Hall always fills up for playoff games, and I remember looking around and seeing a lot of Northwestern fans there, and they were really loud.”

Pine Grove featured Lacey Belcher, who would finish her high school career with close to 2,000 points. Miller was given the task of guarding Belcher, and found herself in early foul trouble, so Deutsch sent in Megan Miller, a junior, to eat up some minutes.

Northwestern was boosted by a strong first half from Stellar, who scored 20 points before halftime. It also helped that the Tigers reached the foul line 39 times in the game to hold a 10-point lead with just four minutes left in regulation.

Belcher and the rest of the Pine Grove team continued to battle, and with :04 left and the game tied, Belcher was fouled on her way to the basket. She was awarded the basket and made the free throw to put Pine Grove up by three.

Horn, who still sits atop Northwestern’s list as the all-time leader in three-pointers, worked her magic and hit a 30-footer at the buzzer to send the game into overtime. The teams battled through an overtime period with Northwestern able to hang on for a 57-55 win and the first District 11 championship in the history of the program.

“We really were the cardiac kids that season, especially with the overtime game to win the league and then winning districts in overtime,” remembers Deutsch. “It was really weird, because we were trailing in the league championship and had to come back to send it to overtime, and then in districts, we gave up the lead late in the game. It was a special group of girls.”

After the team’s celebration ended, they remembered something that Deutsch had told them early in the season.

“I had told the team that if they won districts, they could dye my hair. None of us thought of it at first, but when they reminded me, I remembered that I did tell them that,” laughed Deutsch. “They wanted to dye it pink, but I was a teacher at Northampton back then and I knew that I couldn’t do that, so we negotiated, and it turned out to be a blondish red color.”

As for the players on that team, Stellar would go on to Lehigh University on a cross country scholarship and stood for many years as Northwestern’s all-time leading scorer, until Sarah Jones bumped her down to No. 2.

Stellar also gained some notoriety when she was featured on the show ‘Say Yes to the Dress,’ which cataloged her quest to find the perfect wedding dress and then filmed her marriage to Patrick Holmes, whom she met on her recruiting trip to Lehigh.

Caitlin Miller still ranks as Northwestern’s all-time leader in rebounds, and played college basketball at De Sales, while Horn went on to play at Wilkes.

With Stellar and Miller graduating, pundits overlooked Northwestern to win the Colonial League title the following season, but they beat the odds and not only won the league crown, but again went to the District 11 finals, this time in the 3A classification. Unfortunately, they couldn’t make it back-to-back district titles, falling to Allentown Central Catholic, 43-22.

The 2005-06 District 11 championship remains the only district championship for the girls program at Northwestern Lehigh.