BERLINSVILLE — An annual tradition for senior night meant a little more this year for Palmerton and Northern Lehigh, as both squads have qualified for the Colonial League and District 11 3A playoffs.

The Bulldogs showed their growth and why they’ve finally made it to the playoffs for the first time since 2011. However, the seasoned Blue Bombers, filled with playoff experience, had the final say in this chapter of the rivalry at Bryfogle Park on Tuesday with a 5-1 victory.

The contest began as an old-fashioned pitchers’ duel between Palmerton senior ace Cameron Pengelly, and Nolehi’s top arm in Parker Schaffer. The two went pitch-for-pitch and put up zeros through 3 ½ innings.

The Bombers got Schaffer to blink first and end his outing in the bottom of the fourth, working deep into counts and taking advantage of an error and a hit batter to score two runs for a 2-0 advantage.

Now with a lead to work with, Pengelly worked his way through a jam in the fifth to cap off his night and placed himself into program history. The right-hander struck out nine batters to put himself at 97 for the season, setting a new Palmerton single-season strikeout record.

“It means a lot to me,” Pengelly said about the record. “Breaking that threshold, that’s been a standard for a while. I didn’t attack (with) first-pitch strikes like I wanted to ... but I bore down when I needed to and made them swing and miss when I needed to.”

“It’s pretty nice to give (Pengelly) the ball every few days,” head coach Tyler Svetik said. “The team’s mindset is different when he’s on the mound. Hopefully we get a couple more starts out of him because it’s very nice to hand him the ball knowing what you’re going to get.”

In the bottom of the fifth, the Bombers added to their lead by taking advantage of NL “beating themselves” according to head coach Gerald Kresge.

After a bases-loaded walk, Gaige McGowan brought two more runs home on a popup that alluded Schaffer, who had just taken over as the new shortstop, to extend the Palmerton lead to 5-0.

“By the time he turned around, it was on the other side of him, and he just lost it,” Kresge said in defense of his player. “I’ll take Parker in a pressure situation every single day. We don’t ever yell about errors; they’re part of the game.”

The Bulldogs managed to muster a run in the sixth with an RBI ground out from Braedon Dougherty, but the combination of the Bomber defense and Brady Reph in relief was too much for Nolehi to overcome.

With playoffs being a new situation for the Bulldogs, coach Kresge recognizes that the pressure is having an effect on his team but hopes that these final few games have shaken those cobwebs off.

“We’ve started to struggle a little bit in the last two or three games here as the pressure’s been turned up,” said Kresge. “We’ve going to talk about the mental approaches to it at practice. It’s been a long time since we’ve been in playoffs at Northern Lehigh, so we’ll take it. We’re going to be excited about it.”

For Palmerton, it is believed this victory moves the club up to fourth place in the Colonial League standings. If true, that would give the Bombers a home game to open the Colonial League playoffs against Northwestern on Friday.

“The things we didn’t do well today, we’re going to have to do well on Friday because Northwestern will not allow us to expose weaknesses,” coach Svetik said. “We have to be on our A-game going forward, and we know that.”

SENIOR TRADITON ... Palmerton honored its five senior members before the game: Pengelly, Reph, Jason Carrelli, Luke Matkso and Alex Keiper. “The senior class is very special to me; we’ve been through a lot together,” coach Svetik said. “They’ve grown a lot physically and mentally, and I’ve grown a lot with them. Tenth grade year, we had a really tough year (where) we found ways to lose games. Last year, we found ways to win games. This year has been back and forth, we want this season to go as long as we can with them.”

Northern Lehigh 000 001 0 - 1 3 4

Palmerton 000 230 x - 5 2 0

Schaffer, Kabrick (4), Christman (5) and Buskirk; Pengelly, Reph (6) and Ahner. W - Pengelly. L - Schaffer.

Records: Northern Lehigh (10-10; 9-9); Palmerton (12-8; 11-7).