ALLENTOWN — If one were to poll all of the Northwestern Lehigh fans at Tuesday night’s semifinal game at Allen High School, half of them would probably say the offense was the reason the Tigers won, and the other half would say the defense was the reason.

The truth is that it’s hard to tell which was more dominating — the offense that put up 24 points in the first quarter, or the defense that allowed just six points over the final two quarters.

Northwestern put together a great game plan, and then executed it to perfection to defeat North Schuylkill 60-28 and earn a spot back in the District 11 Class 4A finals Friday night against Allentown Central Catholic in a rematch of last year’s title game.

Three members of the senior class announced their presence early and carried the Tigers offense by scoring 22 of the 24 first-quarter points.

Malachi Coleman hit on a pair of three-pointers and finished with 10 points, while Mason Bollinger scored seven, and Cannon Fitch put up five early points for Northwestern. In the span of 1:18, all three seniors hit a three-pointer to pull Northwestern from five points down to four points up at 9-5 with 5:13 left in the first quarter.

After Xavier McNally, North Schuylkill’s 6-7 sophomore, got his first basket of the night, Northwestern scored 15 unanswered points and led 24-9 by the end of the first quarter.

Much of the scoring came on assists from junior Brady Krimmel, who constantly threaded the ball through to his teammates.

“Brady is kind of our floor general out there. He was really on tonight, and a lot of our scoring came from things that he did to make things happen,” said Coleman. “We executed really well tonight, and it was big for us to get an early lead and take a little pressure off of ourselves.”

The Spartans did a much better job of getting the ball down low to McNally in the second quarter and he picked up nine points, all of them coming from within six feet of the basket. With just four seconds to play until halftime, McNally pulled down a rebound and put it back in, but Northwestern still held a 34-22 advantage.

“They started to get the ball to him down low, and he went on a little run in the second quarter, so we made some adjustments at halftime, and we were able to take care of him the rest of the way,” said coach Pat Wanamaker about containing McNally.

“We watched him play against Beca the other night and we saw what he can do, so we knew we had to focus on him and try to contain him.”

Contain him they did, as the put-back just before the end of the half was the last basket McNally would record.

Northwestern came out and put the game away quickly in the third quarter, as the first 14 points of the period were scored by the Tigers.

Bollinger scored 11 of his 19 points within a 3:55 span of time and defensively, Northwestern didn’t allow a basket until there was just 2:01 left in the quarter.

Northwestern’s combined offensive and defensive firepower pushed its advantage to 49-27 going into the final quarter.

“A lot of that quarter was really my teammates. I was able to get open, but they got the ball to me and put me in a position to help the team,” noted Bollinger. “We did a great job of moving the ball tonight and finding the open man.”

Just to be sure that North Schuylkill wasn’t going to get any ideas about a come-from-behind upset, the Tigers put together another stretch of points to put the game into running clock mode when Fitch hit a pair of free throws to make it 58-27 with 2:25 left to play.

Not only did Fitch hit a pair of threes, but he went 5-for-6 from the free-throw line.

The Spartans pulled all of their starters and waved the white flag from there and took a 60-28 loss.

PICK YOUR POISON ... Three teams from Class 4A in District 11 will qualify for states, so both teams knew they would be playing after Tuesday night’s game even if it was in a consolation game. For Northwestern, that meant they would have a rematch either with second-seeded Salisbury, who they beat in the league semifinals, or with Central Catholic, who beat them last season in the district finals. The Vikings downed Salisbury in the other semifinal game, setting up round two of Central Catholic and Northwestern. The game will be Friday night back at Allen High School and is scheduled for 7:45 p.m.

NORTH SCHUYLKILL

Damiter 1-0-0-2, Maziekas 3-0-1-7, Mengel 1-0-0-2, Nelson 1-1-2-3, McNally 5-1-4-11, Kacilowicz 1-1-2-3, Cairo 0-0-0-0, Gallagher 0-0-0-0, Kronkowski 0-0-0-0, Osenbach 0-0-0-0, Wall 0-0-0-0, Hannon 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 12-3-9-28.

NORTHWESTERN

Bollinger 8-0-1-19, Zimmerman 1-0-0-2, Fitch 2-5-6-11, Krimmel 1-2-2-4, Coleman 8-1-2-19, Wertman 0-0-0-0, Lagowy 1-1-1-3, Nicholas 0-0-0-0, Kumernitsky 1-0-0-2, Kozlowski 0-0-0-0, Snyder 0-0-0-0, Hechler 0-0-0-0, Mish 0-0-0-0. TOTALS; 22-9-12-60.

N. Schuylkill 9 13 5 1 - 28

Northwestern 24 10 15 11 - 60

Three-pointers: North Schuylkill - Maziekas 1; Northwestern - Bollinger 3, Fitch 2, Coleman 2.

Records: North Schuylkill (14-10); Northwestern (21-5).