Last week’s victory over Northwestern was impressive for Lehighton.

However, it’s safe to say the Indians one-upped themselves in Monday’s meetup.

The two Colonial League rivals squared off for the second time in four days. Expecting to see another close contest, Lehighton stunned everyone with back-to-back four-run innings to pull away and eventually earn a 9-0 victory.

The Indians snapped a five-game losing streak on Friday when Logan Bellis provided the only run with a homer in a 1-0 win over the Tigers at a game played at DeSales University. With the rematch at Lehighton, the question became whether Friday’s event was an outlier, or a sign of what was to come.

Northwestern threatened early but failed to convert, leaving four men on base over the first two frames. For the Indians, it took until the third to get on base when Cole Dietz reached on a bunt. Walks and a fielder’s choice forced in the game’s opening run.

Then up stepped senior Jayse Lawrence, who claimed that he had been in a slump for most of the season. That was until this at-bat when he drove a ball into right field for a bases-clearing triple to extend his team’s lead to 4-0.

Tribe coach J.C. Dietz admitted that it was only a matter of time before Lawrence would break through offensively.

“Jayse has been hitting the ball really hard lately and they were catching it,” he said. “Before the game, I actually told Jayse, I said ‘I actually had a dream that one of your singles was actually going to fall in this time.’”

Facing a four-run deficit, the Tigers found themselves in what felt like an insurmountable situation.

Similar to Friday’s ballgame, head coach Brian Polaha believes his team has hit a rough patch at the plate recently.

“Offense has been an issue all year really, and it’s been a big time struggle the last week or so,” he said. “The problem with that is one call or one hit or one bad inning can doom you if you can’t score runs. It’s about us right now.”

To make matters worse for Northwestern, it wasn’t going to receive any mercy from Lehighton.

The bottom of the fourth opened with two Tiger errors to give the Tribe another run. Pouncing on NW’s mistakes, the Indians kept the train moving with a sacrifice fly from Konner Nalesnik and three straight hits, including an RBI double by Chase Llewellyn and an RBI single off the bat of Bellis. In just two innings, a scoreless game quickly ballooned to an 8-0 Tribe lead.

Lehighton picked up its final run in the fifth on another Tiger error.

The pitching duo of Luke Haydt (through three frames) and Cole Dietz (through four) shut the door, capping off back-to-back shutouts against a Tiger ballclub that many considered to be one of the top teams in the Colonial League.

Despite being in an offensive rut, coach Polaha is not concerned about his team’s effort and believes they are fully aware of how tough its is to face a league opponent.

“We know what’s at stake every time,” he said. “There’s a lot of parity in the league, within our division too. I feel like this year more than ever, on a given day, any one of those teams can beat the other. It just depends on who plays better that day.”

On the other side, coach Dietz can’t talk enough about how proud he is of his team, and how they’ve fought through many different circumstances. His hope is that they continue to build off of what they’ve already achieved.

“I knew it was going to be an up-and-down season playing all of these sophomores, but I said earlier in the season (that) we have a good group of seniors that are kind of guiding those sophomores. For us to beat Northwestern on Friday and here again (today) is just a testament to the kids.

“These were just two great victories to beat them back-to-back. Any time you’re beating Northwestern, you’re doing something very well. I couldn’t be more proud of every one of those kids.”

SENIOR SHOWCASE ... Lehighton hosted its senior night festivities prior to Monday’s game where it honored the six senior members of the ballclub: Dietz, Lawrence, Nalesnik, Landon Abelovsky, Aiden Solt and Brady Stubits. “I’ve coached these kids since Little League; a lot of them since T-ball,” said coach Dietz. “I’ve been around them a long time, and they’re actually helping the (sophomores) relax. Their presence and leadership are huge, and I have two of them that come off the bench who accept their roles and are model kids.”

Northwestern 000 000 0 - 0 5 3

Lehighton 004 410 x - 9 6 0

Neupauer, Carson (5) and Fatzinger; Haydt, Dietz (4) and Atwood. W - Haydt. L - Neupauer.

Records: Northwestern (10-6; 9-6); Lehighton (8-9; 8-7).