Northwestern and Lehighton had a back-and-forth battle Friday night on the new court at Northwestern High School. The two teams see-sawed through 10 lead changes and both had to counter strong runs by their opponent.

In the end, it was the Indians who came away with a 49-45 non-league win.

Lehighton’s Skylynn Faust led all scorers with 28 points in the game and pulled down nine rebounds. The Tigers actually did have some success shutting down Faust’s shooting in the fourth quarter, holding her to just one basket, but she scorched Northwestern at the line by hitting six of seven foul shots over the final eight-minutes.

“Foul shots and try to hold on to the ball,” laughed coach Joe Berezwick. “The old school try to run the clock out. It was a big win for us.”

Faust had 10 first quarter points and Northwestern changed their approach to trying to guard her and held her to just three points in the second quarter. The problem was that Faust picked up on what they were doing and changed her approach. Later in the game, she used her agility to get to the line and hurt Northwestern that way.

“When they were doing their pressure up-top, if I ball-faked and went to the rim as a slasher, I could get the points that I was looking for,” explained Faust. “In the first quarter and second quarter, I was settling for shots that we didn’t necessarily need, so I started to drive to the basket more.”

Faust nailed a little jump shot with 38 left to play in the first half that gave Lehighton a seven-point lead, equaling their largest lead of the game. Sage Christopher pulled down a rebound and put it right back up to cut Lehighton’s lead to 23-18 at the half.

“We knew we had to come out and play hard and we used a lot of energy in the first half,” said Berezwick. “The defense did an outstanding job, but they came out and made a run in the second half. It was a good character test for our kids, because we could have folded up and gone home, but we answered the run and then we made a run of our own to take us to the end.”

After several ties and lead changes in the third quarter, The Indians’ Thera Hibbler knocked down a three-pointer to erase a one-point Northwestern lead and put Lehighton up 40-38 midway through the final quarter. Six foul shots from Faust made that lead standup the rest of the way.

SCORERS ... Gabby Sevrain led Northwestern with 15 points and Leighanna Lister scored 12. Aubrey Blasiak added 11 for Lehighton.

PERFECTION ... Lehighton is now 4-0. Northwestern falls to 3-2.

WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH ... Northwestern coach Chris Deutsch noted that his team has had three tough non-league opponents of their own in the early going with Whitehall, Allen and Lehighton. The Tigers downed Whitehall, but dropped games to Allen and Lehighton, but Deutsch is convinced that playing stronger opponents in non-conference games will help them in Colonial League play.

CLOSE DOESN’T COUNT ... Lehighton won its first three games by a combined score of 182-98 with their closest win being by 21 points. Deutsch was proud of his defensive play against Lehighton and the fact that his team played hard in giving the Indians a battle. “They’re a good team and with Faust and Blasiak, we knew we were going to have a battle on our hands. They’re both so good.”

LEHIGHTON

Brown 0-0-0-0, Frey 0-1-2-1, Long 0-0-0-0, Hibbler 1-0-0-3, Blasiak 3-3-6-11, Miller 3-0-0-6, Pantella 0-0-0-0, Faust 9-6-7-28, Buchinsky 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 16-13-20-49.

NORTHWESTERN

L. Lister 5-1-3-12, Chisdak 1-0-2-3, G. Sevrain 1-4-6-6, S. Sevrain 6-1-4-15, Hess 0-0-0-0, Williamson 1-1-2-3, Christopher 2-2-2-6, S. Sekerak 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 16-9-19-45.

Lehighton 17 6 12 14 - 49

Northwestern 12 6 17 10 - 45

Three-pointers: Lehighton - Blasiak 2, Hibler 1, Faust 1; Northwestern - S. Sevrain 2, L. Lister 1, Chisdak 1.