The offense kept rolling for Northwestern on Monday in an 8-1 win over Notre Dame-Green Pond.

The Tigers used a 15-hit attack en route to their 12th win of the season. Northwestern has now clinched a spot in districts and are closing in on winning the West Division of the Colonial League.

A bases loaded groundball by Nick Henry gave Northwestern a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first. They expanded on that in the third inning when Rafe Perich was hit by a pitch and then stole second. Derek Holmes reached on an infield single and Henry then hit into a fielder’s choice with Perich being thrown out at third.

Brandon Mengel loaded the bases with another infield hit, and Colten Hagadus followed with a two-run double to make it 3-0. Justin Holmes kept the inning alive with an RBI single to plate Hagadus and the Tigers were up 4-0 after three innings.

“I was looking to put the ball in play and it just happened,” said Hagadus of his two-run double.

Carter Welch allowed the first two batters to reach base in the first inning on a leadoff walk and a base hit. He then picked a runner off second and got the next two batters to end any early threat from the Crusaders (7-5 overall, 6-5 Colonial). Welch then cruised through the next three innings, allowing just one hit along the way.

The Tigers’ offense didn’t take any time off and went right back to work in the fourth. Nate Goodolf led off with an infield single and Welch hit a groundball that was fielded in short right field by second baseman Rich Mueller, who was unable to make a play at first. On the play, Goodolf used aggressive baserunning to make it from first to third. Perich delivered a sacrifice fly to score Goodolf and after Welch stole second, Derek Holmes singled to put runners on the corners with one out. After Holmes stole second, Notre Dame played the infield in and Henry took advantage of the situation to ground a ball past a diving Josh Herman at short, driving in two runs and making it 7-0 in favor of Northwestern (12-2, 9-1).

The Tigers looked to continue the scoring when Mengel delivered a line drive hit to right, putting runners on first and second. Hagadus then dropped a well-placed bunt toward third that was fielded by pitcher Nick Vonelli, who had no play and the bases were loaded. Justin Holmes then hit a groundball to short that was called a double-play when it was ruled that Hadadus slid too far away from second base in an attempt to break up the play.

The final run came in the fifth inning when Welch reached on a two-out error by Mueller and scored when Perich followed with an RBI double to center, making it 8-0.

Welch threw five shutout innings, striking out six batters. Vinny Castrine came on and went 1 2/3 innings, but was touched for a run in the seventh. He gave way to Perich, who issued a walk before he struck out Kyle Duplaga to end the game.

GOOD THINKING ... As it turns out, Hagadus’ bunt was of his own design and not a play put on by coach Duran Porrino. Dropping an unexpected bunt is something that Hagadus has put into his arsenal and used at different times during the season. “I saw the third baseman back and I figured I would see what would happen; either get the runners over or get on base,” Hagadus said.

SITTING PRETTY ... The Northwestern schedule is spread out enough so that they can get work for their top pitchers, but still keep them relatively fresh. The Tigers have three days off before back-to-back games against Southern Lehigh (7-4, 6-4) and Wilson (9-1, 7-1). After two more off days, they play Northern Lehigh (3-9, 2-9) and then have another three days off until they wrap up the regular season with games against Salisbury (3-9, 2-8) and Catasauqua (4-6, 3-5). “We can throw our two or three best pitchers every game. Realistically, we should be pretty hard to beat down the stretch the way the schedule allows us to use our pitchers. It’s going to take a pretty tough team to beat us right now,” said Porrino.

No. Dame 000 000 1 - 1 4 2

N’western 103 310 x - 8 15 0

Vonelli, Flynn (5) and Yurkovitch; Welch, Castrine (6), Perich (7) and D. Holmes. W - Welch. L - Vonelli.