EMMAUS — Four times, Northwestern worked its way back to tie Saucon Valley in the District 11 2A semifinals on Monday.

Twice, it was down by two goals and still came back to even the score.

Two things it wasn’t able to do were to take a lead, and to work back from a three-goal deficit late in the game.

The result was a 10-9 loss to the Panthers that ended the season for Northwestern, and put Saucon Valley into the district championship where it will face top seed Southern Lehigh.

Early in the game, freshman Gracie Donahue — who came into the contest with 74 goals — was close to unstoppable for Saucon Valley. She had three first-quarter goals, and added another in the second to pick up four of the Panthers first five goals.

After some changes at halftime, Northwestern was able to shut her down in the second half.

Unfortunately for Northwestern, Tess Andrews — who picked up a first-quarter goal — came up with two tallies in the third quarter and Saucon Valley was able to spread the scoring with Lauren Hawk, McKenzie Johnston and Kristen Lussier all adding single goals.

Hawk and Lussier scored their goals late, and put the Panthers up 10-7 with 6:05 left in regulation.

“We played much better as the game went on. In the second quarter especially, we did a tremendous job defensively and limited their opportunities,” explained Tigers coach Pam Colistra. “The offense and the defense really did a nice job for us.”

Just as Donahue was unstoppable for Northwestern, Amanda Breidinger also scored four times with a pair of goals in both the first and fourth quarters.

Breidinger made a nice spin move to beat goalie Leah Guest to tie the game at two in the first quarter. Her other three goals all worked to bring Northwestern closer in the game, including her fourth goal, which came wit 5:01 left to play when she scored to make it 10-8.

Freshman Cali Colistra scored three times. Her first opened the second-quarter scoring and tied the game at 4-4. Her second and third goals came just :44 apart in the third.

After Saucon Valley took a 6-4 lead on Andrews’ goal, Colistra scored :14 later when her shot deflected off of Guest’s stick and went to the back of the net. She soon found herself at the front corner of the net, and put a shot past Guest to tie the game 6-6.

Junior Olivia Fagan had a good game, with her first goal tying the game 1-1. Late in the fourth quarter, she delivered a great pass to Breidinger who scored to make it a 10-8 game.

Less than two minutes later, she scored her second goal of the night to pull the Tigers within a goal at 10-9.

The game came down to a free position play for Fagan with :06 left in regulation, who somehow fired a shot around a pair of defenders and even though Guest was screened, she got her stick on the ball and deflected it away from the goal as time ran out.

“We had to keep battling throughout the game and the girls never quit, they never hung their heads,” said Colistra. “To get down by three goals, and then have the game come down to the final play with us having a chance to tie the game was awesome. Our effort was definitely there.”

300 AND COUNTING ... Goalie Ashley Yacynych came into the game needing three saves to reach the 300 mark. The junior goalie was called on for seven saves in the game to surpass the milestone. It was earlier in the regular season that Yacynych made her 200th save of her career. With 304 career saves, she will likely surpass the 400 mark in her senior season.

THE TOUGHEST PART ... Colistra called saying goodbye to a group of five seniors “the toughest part” of the loss. Ella Filipovits, Olivia Greenawalt, Haley Kerschner, Gracie Scheffler and Mykaela Yanders are all heading to graduation. “They have all been so great to work with, and it’s going to be different without their personalities and leadership,” said Colistra. “The remaining players just have to step into bigger roles, and I’m excited to see the freshman group that we will have next season.”

Saucon Valley 4 1 3 2 - 10

Northwestern 3 1 2 3 - 9

Goals: Saucon Valley - Donahue 4, Andrews 3, Lussier 1, Hawk 1, Johnston 1; Northwestern - A. Breidinger 4, Colistra 3, Fagan 2; Saves: Saucon Valley - Guest 6; Northwestern - Yacynych 7.

Records: Saucon Valley (8-10); Northwestern (11-8).