Southern Lehigh routs Northwestern

CENTER VALLEY — When Northwestern hosted Southern Lehigh about three weeks ago, the Tigers led throughout the game, but the Spartans were able to rally late for a narrow win.

The two teams met again Saturday, and it was nothing like that first game, with Southern Lehigh starting strong and winding up with an impressive 57-31 win.

“I thought they would come out and go for a knock-out punch, and they did, “said Northwestern coach Chris Deutsch. “They jumped us right from the start of the game. I can say ‘we didn’t do this, we didn’t do that,’ but credit them, they’re a very good team and they played better than we did today.

“We didn’t make shots, they made shots, we didn’t take care of the ball, they took care of the ball. It was more of what they did than what we didn’t do.”

Olivia Snyder put on a clinic to lead all scorers with 23 points, including hitting two three-pointers and going seven-of-eight from the foul line. Avery Bennett finished with 14 points for the Spartans (10-0, 11-2).

Sydney Sevrain led Northwestern (8-2, 10-4) with seven points and Jessica Williamson had five.

Northwestern was held to just 10 first-half points and trailed 33-10.

In the second half, Northwestern played much better, but wasn’t able to mount enough of a run to put itself back into the game. The closest the Tigers got was when Sevrain opened the third quarter with a three-pointer and Abby Chisdak followed with a drive to the basket to cut Southern Lehigh’s lead to 33-15.

“I thought it was basically an even second half, so that was encouraging that for 16 minutes we basically – give or take a point here or there – played them even, but when we play them, we have to play for a full 32-minutes, and we didn’t do that,” said Deutsch. “You can’t score 10 points in a half against them because they have such great firepower.

“Realistically, you have to figure that to beat them, you’re going to have to score in the 50s. They’re tough to guard, because they’ve got [Amanda] Mobley (six points), they’ve got Snyder, Bennett can hit shots, and [Ellie] Cassel (four points) can shoot. They’ve got a lot of firepower, and they’re tough.”

LET’S GET PHYSICAL ... The game had its rough moments, with Sevrain leaving temporarily with a bloody nose and other players taking some hard shots that took them to the court. While it was physical, there were no cheap shots, nor was there ever a hint of anything getting out of hand.

WINNING BIG ... In their 10 wins, Southern Lehigh’s margin of victory is just over 28 points, and Northwestern remains the only Colonial League team to lose to the Spartans by less than 10 points (51-48 in their first meeting). Their losses came to Archbishop Carroll and Easton by a combined total of just eight points.

NORTHWESTERN

A. Lister 0-0-0-0, L. Lister 1-0-2-2, Chisdak 1-0-2-2, G. Sevrain 2-0-0-4, S. Sevrain 2-2-3-7, Hess 2-0-2-4, E. Sekerak 0-0-2-0, Williamson 1-3-4-5, Christopher 1-1-2-3, S. Sekerak 1-0-0-2, Sisco 0-2-3-2, Giese 0-0-0-0, TOTAL: 11-8-20-31

SOUTHERN LEHIGH

A.Mobley 3-0-1-6, Chase 0-0-0-0, Bennett 6-1-1-14, Wilkins 1-0-0-3, Moncman 2-1-2-5, Snyder 7-7-8-23, Rautureau 0-0-2-0, Rice 1-0-0-2, Cassel 2-0-2-4, K. Mobley 0-0-0-0, TOTALS: 22-9-16-57

Northwestern 6 4 13 8 – 31

So. Lehigh 19 14 15 9 – 57

Three-pointers: Northwestern – S. Sevrain 1; So. Lehigh – Bennett 1, Wilkins 1, Snyder 2