Northwestern’s Dylan Witkowski was shut out in the first half of Tuesday’s Colonial League quarterfinal game against Southern Lehigh.

That didn’t mean he was going to get shut out the entire evening.

Witkowski opened the scoring in the third quarter with a three-pointer and in overtime, scored all eight of the Tigers’ points to advance his team to the semifinals with a 52-49 win.

When the celebrating was done, Witkowski finished with 17 points, with six of the biggest coming in overtime.

With the score tied 46-46, Southern Lehigh’s Daryl Coleman hit a three-pointer with 1:42 left to play and momentum shifted to the Spartans. Rather than hang their heads, the Tigers (13-4) simply came back down the court and got the ball to Witkowski, who again tied the game by hitting a trey with 1:25 remaining in the extra period.

Both teams had some miscues after that, but with just 3.9 seconds left on the clock, the Tigers ran a late set that allowed them a couple different options and it turned out that Witkowski not only had the hot hand, but also a good look for a three-pointer and took it.

The shot was perfect, and Southern Lehigh (7-5) immediately called a timeout to regroup for one final chance.

“Justin [Holmes] set a perfect screen for me on that play, and I had the open look, so I took it,” said Witkowski. “We saw their guy [Dominic Lisicky] was overplaying that the whole game on that play, so I just decided to come off a different way, and that created the opening.”

With their only option being to get the ball to Max Pristas for a long three-point attempt, the Spartans watched as the ball bounced off the rim with the buzzer sounding in the background.

“Coleman’s going to get his points [he finished with 21], but we at least made him work for as many of them as we could,” said Northwestern coach Jerry Lloyd. “I thought Nick [Henry] and Cade [Christopher] did a good job when we went to a box-and-one on them. You don’t stop Coleman with one guy, it takes the whole team.”

The game saw nine lead changes and the two teams were tied 20-20 at halftime. The Tigers came out hot in the second half as Witkowski hit a three to start things off and went on an 11-0 run to go up 31-20 and put the Spartans on their heels.

Southern Lehigh was able to use an 8-0 run that crossed over into the fourth quarter to cut the deficit to just three points. The Spartans eventually pulled within one point and then tied the game 44-44 when Lisicky made the second of two foul shots with 1:46 left in regulation, setting up overtime.

“We just wanted to end overtime,” said sophomore Cayden Fitch, who scored five points and played a big role for the Tigers defensively. “We just wanted to double Coleman and make sure that he couldn’t catch a ball, so they had to make someone else make a play.”

TURNAROUND ... When the two teams met during the regular season on Jan. 19, it was Coleman who put the game in the win column for Southern Lehigh when he hit a three-pointer with time running out, giving the Spartans a 58-55 win. While Coleman got 21 points this time around, they held him to just two in OT and denied him a chance to be the hero.

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES ... While Pristas missed the last-chance three, the game wouldn’t have gone to overtime if not for a missed jumper by Lisicky with :01 left in regulation. The game also could have turned out differently had Lisicky hit both foul shots late in regulation and put the Spartans up one instead of tying the game.

SLATE BELT ROAD TRIP ... Northwestern travels to Bangor for its semifinal game tonight against the Slaters. As the No. 2 seed, Bangor matched up against Wilson in the quarterfinals and beat the Warriors 71-47. The Tigers are the third seed, so they have to go on the road.

SOUTHERN LEHIGH

Lisicky 2-1-2-6, Ascolese 0-0-0-0, Andrews 0-0-0-0, Coleman 8-3-4-21, Pristas 4-0-1-10, Tankred 5-0-0-10, Denton 0-2-2-2. TOTALS: 19-6-9-49.

NORTHWESTERN

Fitch 2-0-0-5, Christopher 3-1-3-7, Holmes 3-0-0-6, Henry 3-2-2-10, Witkowski 7-0-0-17, Stitzel 1-0-0-2, Garrido 2-1-1-5. TOTALS: 21-4-6-52.

Southern Lehigh 9 11 10 14 5 - 49

Northwestern 7 13 15 9 8 - 52

Three-pointers: Southern Lehigh - Coleman 2, Pristas 2, Lisicky 1; Northwestern - Witkowski 3, Henry 2, Fitch 1.