There’s never a good time to have a bad shooting night.

But that’s especially true during the postseason.

On Friday evening, the Palmerton girls were hoping to punch their ticket to the Colonial League semifinals when they faced host Catasauqua. However, the Blue Bombers struggled from the perimeter and never seemed to find their rhythm in dropping a 52-37 decision to the Rough Riders.

“We got good looks, we just couldn’t knock them down,” said Palmerton head coach Jeremy Coleman. “It was just a poor time to have a poor shooting night. When you play against a zone the entire game, you’ve got to knock down shots. And we just weren’t able to do it. Most of the season we have been able to do it, but tonight was not our night, for sure.”

The shooting woes surfaced right from the start as the fifth-seeded Bombers were only 3-of-14 from the floor — including a 1-of-10 effort from three-point range — during the opening quarter.

That one trey — from Avery Barry — tied the score at 7-7, but Catty closed the frame on a 7-0 run and never trailed after that.

Thanks to the inside play of the Roughies’ Kaylin Stewart, the home team extended its lead to double digits at 25-15 with less than three minutes until halftime.

Stewart not only took advantage of assists from Hailey Jenkins, whose drives to the baskets left the Catty center alone underneath, but she also had a number of putbacks during the first half in which she tallied 13 points.

“I feel Catty had a pretty good shooting night,” said Coleman. “We wanted to try and keep as much as possible Jenkins on the perimeter, but she’s slippery. She’s lightning quick, she gets through there. That’s why Stewart had such a good night with all the dish-offs she had to her.

“They’re a quicker team than us, and that definitely showed today. So that, with the combination of our poor shooting led to that deficit.”

Palmerton did shoot a little better in the middle periods (9-of-22 overall and 4-of-10 from distance) and managed to cut the gap to 36-31 late in the third quarter after an inside bucket from Emma Rex, but Jenkins took over in the final frame.

The crafty senior guard weaved her way through the Bombers’ defense throughout the period and found her way to the basket or to the foul line on her way to nine fourth-quarter points. Palmerton, meanwhile, went cold again from the floor, missing all seven attempts from beyond the arc.

“A few weeks ago, we kind of tried to stress you can’t live by the three because you’ll die by the three, and that’s kind of what happened today,” said Coleman. “We had a poor shooting performance and we weren’t able to get enough of the twos to kind of sustain us.”

Some of the credit for Palmerton’s poor shooting effort was Catasauqua’s zone defense, which was active against the Bombers top shooters.

“We knew that (Cate Morgan) and (Hailey Barry), we had to get a hand out on those young ladies,” said Roughie head coach Tara Belfield. “They’ve been playing really good basketball since Courtney (Connell) went out. We knew without Courtney in there in the post the focus had to be on them.

“You never want to see another player hurt or out for that reason, but we knew we were going to have to take advantage of that with Kaylin Stewart down in the post. We thought she’d have to have a good game and step up without Courtney out there to defend her (and she did).”

SCORING ... Jenkins, who managed just four points in the opening half but handed out plenty of assists, finished with a game-high 19 points. Stewart followed with 18 and also collected 14 rebounds. For Palmerton, Morgan tallied a team-high 15 points while Avery Barry ended with nine.

ROUGH NIGHT ... The Bombers’ final shooting numbers were 15-of-52 overall (28.8 percent) and 5-of-27 from distance (18.5 percent). Catty, seeded fourth in the tourney, was 18-of-42 from the floor (42.9 percent).

NEXT ... The Roughies will face top-seeded Notre Dame in the semifinals on Tuesday, while the Bombers will be off until the district playoffs.

PALMERTON

A. Barry 3-0-0-9, Rex 3-0-2-6, Schneider 1-0-0-2, Morgan 6-2-2-15, Wasilewski 0-0-0-0, Green 0-0-2-0, H. Barry 2-0-2-5. TOTALS: 15-2-8-37.

CATASAUQUA

Roberts 0-0-0-0, Sankari 3-3-7-10, Lafond 1-0-0-2, Jenkins 6-7-9-19, Stewart 7-4-6-18, Mankos 1-0-0-3. TOTALS: 18-14-22-52.

Palmerton 7 14 10 6 - 37

Catasauqua 14 16 8 14 - 52

Three-pointers: Palmerton - A. Barry 3, Morgan 1, H. Barry 1; Catasauqua - Sankari 1, Mankos 1.

Records: Palmerton (16-7); Catasauqua (18-5).