ALLENTOWN – The 2025 district playoffs marked the seventh straight season that Northwestern Lehigh has reached the district finals. In each of the previous six seasons, the Tigers went down in defeat with only silver medals to show for their work.

Going back even further, through 18 seasons, Northwestern Lehigh has patiently waited to win a District 11 championship since last winning the 2A title in the spring of 2007.

Finally, its patience – and perseverance – paid off Tuesday evening at Parkland High School, as Northwestern found some early offense to gain momentum, and then put the pedal to the metal for an 11-1 win over North Schuylkill in the District 11 4A championship.

Rylee McGinley, who dropped a perfect sacrifice bunt in the semifinals against Tamaqua to put the tying run into scoring position, led off Tuesday’s game with a fly ball to left field to open the contest with a triple. Emma Freeman then dropped a safety squeeze to third, and when the throw went to first, McGinley easily dashed home for a 1-0 lead.

“It felt great to get the game started that way,” McGinley said. “Whenever you can start with a big play it just gives you momentum, and I think we saw that today with how we were able to build on the momentum throughout the game.”

McGinley would later single and score a run to make her one of four Northwestern players to have a multi-hit game.

Sophomore Ainsley Behler contributed a pair of doubles to drive in a team-high three runs. With two outs in the third inning, Abby Dunstan lined a single to left, and Northwestern hitters were determined not to leave her there. Freshman Natalie Conner followed with an RBI double, and Shelby Mitman delivered the first of her three singles. Behler then drove in both runners with the first of her two doubles to make it 4-0 through three innings.

“I’m glad that I could contribute to it,” said Behler. “Our confidence level is really high, and the energy is great. Our bench was a lot louder than it normally is because our energy level is so high and everyone was so excited to play for this.”

The Tigers used fundamental softball in the fourth to push across four more runs. A leadoff walk by Ella Bressi was followed by Lizzie Diehl’s sacrifice bunt before McGinley singled to make it 5-0. Freeman followed with a groundball to third with the throw to first going into foul territory to allow McGinley to score and Freeman to go to second. Dunstan, who finished the day a home run shy of the cycle, hit a long, high fly ball that hit the fence for an RBI triple and a 7-0 lead. Conner lifted a fly ball to center that was deep enough to score Dunstan with the final run of the inning.

“I thought that one might have gone out because I knew I hit it pretty well,” said Dunstan, who is now hitting .500 (8-for-16) with two home runs and eight RBIs in the postseason. “The other one was more of a line drive, but that one was up in the air longer and I feel like in most other parks it would have gone out.”

Few home runs are hit at Parkland because of legitimate dimensions and an eight-foot tall outfield fence, but Dunstan also came close again in her next at-bat, blasting a fly ball to left center field that fell a couple feet shy of the fence for a double.

Mitman singled, and Behler lined her second double of the day to left field to score Dunstan for a 9-0 lead. Samantha Boyer’s single to center field brought in both runners to end the game via the 10-run rule.

Freeman threw another complete game for the Tigers, allowing five hits and two walks to go with two strikeouts, all of which resulted in just one unearned run. Freeman went through an uncharacteristic stretch of eight innings without gaining a strikeout over the semifinals and finals. The junior currently has 495 career strikeouts.

“Scouting them, we knew that they don’t strike out a lot and we knew that they are able to put the ball in play. The defense was able to make plays behind me, and I was able to pitch where they weren’t able to get a lot of hard hit balls,” said Freeman of the outing.

TO STATES WE GO… Northwestern will play the District 4 champion, either Athens or Central Columbia, in the opening round of states on Monday. The game will be played either at Northwestern Lehigh High School, or in close proximity to the school with the Tigers being the home team.

SILVER AND GOLD, PART 1… The loss to Palisades in the Colonial League finals left a bad taste in the mouths of the Northwestern players, but they used that to regroup and focus on getting the elusive gold medals that they wanted in districts.

“The loss in the Colonial League final was a little bit of a lump for us, but we took it and learned from it and came into this game with a different mentality and more energy,” said Dunstan of the team’s win.

SILVER AND GOLD, PART 2… With the spring sports season canceled by COVID in 2020, Marissa Christman only got to play in three district finals and had to settle for three silver medals in her time at Northwestern. She is back as the middle school coach and an assistant with the varsity team, and collected her first district gold this season.

“It feels great, and I’m glad that we brought it back to the hometown, back to Titletown,” said Christman. “I had a lot of these girls last year and now they’re playing up here and I’m proud of them.”

North Schuylkill 000 010 - 1 5 3

Northwestern 103 403 - 11 14 2

Flynn, Jones (4) and Brouse; Freeman and Dunstan. W - Freeman. L- Flynn.

Records: Northwestern (24-2); North Schuylkill (17-5)