ALLENTOWN - Few teams have been hotter than Palisades and Northern Lehigh.

Both programs entered the Colonial League softball tournament on fire.

The Pirates put together an eight-game winning streak to claim the fourth seed, while the Bulldogs ripped off five straight victories to earn the No. 5 spot.

Palisades made it nine wins in a row Friday night at Pates Park, turning back Northern Lehigh 9-5 to reach the semifinals.

“They hit the ball way better today. We shut them out last time we played them with three hits only,” Pirates coach Jill Amato said of her team’s 6-0 win over the Bulldogs earlier this year.

“So I was expecting that. They went on a win streak after we played them; we’ve been kind of following them, so I knew it was going to be a battle - that’s why we’re the fourth and fifth seeds. But our girls kept their energy up and just kept going and kept going.”

Palisades watched a 5-0 lead evaporate in the third inning.

Haylie Fenstermaker bounced a single up the middle with a full count that scored Emma Smith, who had a leadoff single, to make it 5-1 and move Marisa Maehrer to second with no outs.

A Kaitlyn Stock single to left loaded the bases with one out.

Jordyn Hemingway followed and blasted a double to left center that cleared the bases, scoring Fenstermaker, courtesy runner Peyton Hoffman and Maehrer to cut the deficit to 5-4 with one out.

Cadence Peters followed with a double to left that scored Hemingway to tie it at 5-5.

The Bulldogs’ rally started with a single from Smith, the No. 8 hitter, and a walk from No. 9 hitter Maehrer. Nolehi didn’t have a hit entering the inning.

“We have a lot of girls we feel have the potential to hit the ball against any pitcher in the league at any given moment,” said Bulldogs coach Kate Farber. “So we kind of have them scattered throughout the lineup in a fashion where we feel we put ourselves in that type of situation, where it’s not all stacked on one end or the other.”

Smith had a leadoff single for the second straight inning in the fourth, and Maehrer followed with another walk.

But freshman pitcher Karlye Teman worked out of trouble for Palisades, stranding two runners with a pair of strikeouts sandwiched around a fielder’s choice to keep the game tied 5-5.

Northern Lehigh pitcher Kendall Heiney delivered back-to-back 1-2-3 innings in the third and fourth.

The Bulldogs threatened when Hemingway smoked a leadoff single to left, and Arabella Heintzelman walked to put runners on first and second with one out in the top of the fifth.

Teman responded with a strikeout and ground out to end the inning and leave the runners stranded on first and second.

Heiney started the bottom of the fifth with a strikeout of Ashley Amato, who had a pair of RBI singles in her previous at-bats.

But Brooklyn Lucas and Bri Hunter delivered back-to-back one-out singles.

After an Allie Wenskoski bunt advanced the runners, Kristen Mayers - another freshman - came through with a two-out, two-run single that plated Lucas and Hunter to put the Pirates ahead 7-5.

After a 1-2-3 inning in the circle, Teman punctuated the night with a two-out, two-run homer to score Ailish Kelleher and make it 9-5 in the bottom of the sixth.

Hemingway collected her third hit of the night with a double in the top of the seventh inning.

“When we played them during the regular season, we did not play well. We played poorly defensively, we had a bunch of errors and she (Teman) had 13 strikeouts,” said Farber. “We really struggled to put the ball in play, so coming into today, one of our biggest focuses was to change that. She has a really great rise-ball, so our goal was to take that pitch out of her repertoire, and to be able to hit anything else, and for the most part, I think that we put the ball in play a ton, so we did really well in that aspect. We definitely improved.

“So it’s tough. It’s tough for me as a coach because in a lot of aspects, I feel like we got better and we improved from the last time we played them, but we still didn’t come out on top, so that’s tough.”

MOVING ON

... Palisades will play top seed Northwestern Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the semifinals.

LOOKING AHEAD

... Northern Lehigh will now prepare for the District 11 tournament, where the Bulldogs have clinched a berth in Class 3A.

No. Lehigh 005 000 0 - 5 8 4

Palisades 410 022 x - 9 10 0

Heiney and Stock; Teman and Amato. W - Teman. L - Heiney. HR: Palisades - Teman (6th, one on).