Jeff Miller saw his Northern Lehigh boys basketball team suffer through two bad losses to Fleetwood and Saucon Valley at the end of last week.

Leigh Keenan's Palmerton team, on the other hand, was coming off a quality win over Notre Dame of Green Pond.It was the Bulldogs that came out earlier and was the aggressor building up a nine-point halftime lead and held on for a 60-59 Colonial League triumph.Northern Lehigh couldn't miss in the first half hitting on 16-of-24 shots from the floor, with all seven players who played scoring."We shot the ball very well in the first half and that gave us a little bit of a cushion," said Miller. "We talked at halftime about just digging in defensively to try and get stops, and to Palmerton's credit, they never quit. They started making shots down the stretch, but fortunately we made enough foul shots to hold them off."The Bombers cut it to three (47-44) early in the final quarter, but a 7-0 run by the Bulldogs gave them a 10-point cushion and a 54-44 advantage looking like it was all over for the Bombers. But the home team was able to cut it to three a couple of times, but had to foul and Tyshawn Golden was 5-for-5 from the line and had 11 of his 20 points in the final eight minutes to keep the Bulldogs in front.Spencer Hay had 12 of his game-high 27 points in the fourth quarter to keep the Bombers within striking distance and Ben Weber had five of his seven points the night. But the Bulldogs were able to hold the ball and let time run out after a Hay three-pointer with two seconds left for the win."Golden is a tough kid," Miller exclaimed. "We certainly wanted to get the ball in his hands because we knew they were going to foul and he's our best foul shooter."We had a tough weekend going out to Fleetwood for a physical game and then turned around and face a good Saucon Valley team was tough. These kids are resilient, however, come to practice every day and work hard and that says a lot about them. I thought coming out to start the game we were ready to play and hopefully this proves to them that they can play against the better team's in the Colonial League."Palmerton never led in the entire contest. The Bombers were able to tie it a couple of times, but were never able to get an offensive run going."They shot the ball extremely well in the first half," said Keenan. "They got the ball to the spot that they wanted to. They got open looks and played well."We're obviously getting better, but other tams are as well. There's no such thing as an easy win anymore and we didn't come in here expecting that. We knew they were a quality team with great guard play. They move the ball extremely well."We didn't do a good job handling what they gave us. They gave us opportunities to score, but we didn't go inside enough."Backing up Golden was John Taylor, who finished with 13 points and came up with a big three each time the Bulldogs (4-10, 3-6) needed it.For the Bombers (6-7, 4-5), Hay, who also grabbed 12 rebounds, got help from Mark Quinn with 13 and Mike Stasko with 10.The Bombers won the JV game, 59-47. Palmerton's Mason Stahler finished with 16, Brett Papay 13 and Cole Rodrigues 11. Hasan Mujovic led Northern Lehigh with 12 points.NO. LEHIGHGolden 7-5-5-20, Egan 3-1-2-7, Taylor 5-0-0-13, Shupp 4-0-0-8, McNair 1-0-0-2, Hofmann 2-2-3-6, Scheetz 2-0-0-4. TOTALS: 24-8-10-60.PALMERTONHay 12-1-2-27, Svetik 1-0-0-2, Weber 3-1-1-7, Suto 0-0-0-0, Quinn 5-3-5-13, Buck 0-0-0-0, Stasko 3-3-3-10, Stahler 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 24-8-11-59.No. Lehigh 14 20 8 18 - 60Palmerton 11 14 13 21 - 59Three-pointers: NL - Taylor 3, Golden 1; P - Hay 2, Stasko 1.