NORTHAMPTON — Tuesday night’s District 11 4A volleyball final at Catasauqua High School represented two different story lines in local volleyball.

Bethlehem Catholic, the top seed, was back in the finals just as many suspected it would be.

On the other side of the net was the new kid.

Northwestern Lehigh, the third seed, knocked off second seed Panther Valley in the semifinals to reach its first district championship match, which also gives the Tigers their first trip to the PIAA tournament.

In the end, the Golden Hawks (21-2) won in straight sets but were challenged by the up-and-coming Tigers (19-7). Beca won the opening set 25-17, and then went on to win 25-12 and 28-26.

“Every year our girls buy into what we are doing here, and they just believe in helping us to get better and better,” said head coach Mike Maston.

“Our goal every year is to go one step further and keep building the program and so far, we’ve been doing it.”

The first set was tied seven times.

When Bethlehem Catholic took over serve up 12-9, Leah Zacharia served four straight break points before putting her fifth serve out of bounds. Up until then both sides had trouble hanging on to the serve, with Northwestern collecting just three points off of serves in the set, and Zacharia having the only extended service for the Hawks.

The story changed in the middle set as both teams scored six of their first eight points on serves.

Bethlehem got its serve back with a 10-9 lead, and sophomore Zoey Praedin registered two aces in an eight-serve stretch to take over the set. Northwestern couldn’t battle back and fell 25-12 to put its backs up against the wall.

Here is where a little recent victory came into play.

The Tigers had led Notre Dame of Green Pond 2-0 in the Colonial League playoffs, only to see the Crusaders come back for a 3-2 win. If that could happen, why couldn’t Northwestern reverse that and stretch the match to five sets?

“Our girls were ready to compete even though they were down by two sets,” said Maston. “We made some rotation changes to help limit what (Jocelyn) Bell was able to do against us and I think that helped, but it was the girls just battling so hard to keep this thing going.”

Bell is a Division 1 recruit by Fairleigh Dickinson, and is generally considered one of the hardest hitters in the area. The outside hitter had 10 kills in the first two sets combined, and was held to just three in the final set of the match.

The teams traded serves until a pair of breakpoints by Lexi George put Northwestern up 5-2 and soon after, a pair of breakpoints by Lacey Clymer made it 9-4 in favor of the Tigers.

The Hawks finally caught up to tie the set at 14-14, but Northwestern was still not willing to give in, and battled back to make it 17-15. Bethlehem Catholic took back the serve to pull within one, and Piper Ruggiero served three straight points to put her team up 19-16.

Northwestern still wasn’t done, as the Tigers made another run on three breakpoints by Kayla Schaffer to put Northwestern back on top at 21-19.

Both teams struggled to hold serve and the Hawks tied it at 24, only to see the Tigers go up 25-24.

The Tigers got the serve back looking to win the set with the score at 26-25 in their favor. Clymer’s serve was strong, and Beca returned it only to have Olivia Blanken block the return and watch as it fell to the floor for an apparent win for Northwestern.

Whistles stopped the celebration and the officials called a net violation, taking the point off the board and returning serve to Beca with the score tied at 26.

Zoe Clower was able to get the next two points as Bethlehem Catholic downed Northwestern 28-26 for the straight set win.

Clymer had 12 kills in the match to lead Northwestern. Schaffer had three aces in the match for the Tigers.

“They were amazing tonight. I have nothing but respect for the girls on the court, and they were going after every ball,” said Maston.

“We had a little bit of a slump in the second, but going point-for-point with Bethlehem Catholic in that third set and taking them to extra points was amazing,” said Maston.

ANOTHER NEW ADVENTURE ... Northwestern now goes into the PIAA tournament for the first time and will face the winner of District 2, which comprises the northeast corner of the commonwealth. Top seeded Crestwood plays third seeded Tunkhannock for the championship Thursday night.