ORWIGSBURG - Lehighton boys soccer coach Dave Yob had a pretty good strategy figured out for his team's first trip into the Schuylkill League playoffs on Tuesday against Schuylkill Haven at Bluye Mountain.

"We wanted to set the tone early," Yob said. "I emailed the kids last night from work and I said stay focused, play hard and go from there."The Indians took his advice, kept the Hurricanes from getting any offense going in the first half, and rolled to a 4-0 victory, it's ninth win in a row.The win lifted the Indians into Saturday's championship against Blue Mountain, a 2-1 overtime winner over Nativity at 5 p.m. at Pottsville.Lehighton jumped out to an early lead when Zach Christoff scored on a direct kick with 34:57 still left to play in the first half.Lehighton's dominant performance earned the Indians a 4-0 victory over the defending league champion Hurricanes and a trip to the Schuylkill League finals at 5 p.m. Saturday at Pottsville's Alumni Field.Lehightongot on the board in the 6th minute on a free kick by Zach Christoff, who lined a shot directly to the back of the net as the Hurricanes' wall allowed an opening on the near side."I saw the wall moved a little to the left and saw the opening and slipped it in," Christoff said afterwards.He also added two assists, one with 1:28 left in the half when he found Joe Marks near the end line. Marks pushed the ball to the far post out of reach of Schuylkill Haven goalie Brad Fryer lifting the Indians to a 2-0 halftime lead."As a team, we just work well together," Christoff said. "We have good chemistry. We were able to pass the ball well."A couple of the kids have been playing soccer together since we were 6 years old so that helps alot."It's exciting to get another shot at Blue Mountain since we lost to them twice. It's difficult to beat a team three times in a row."The Hurricanes didn't get their first shot on goal until two minutes into the second half. The finished with only four in the entire game. Lehighton on the other hand had 11 shots on goal and also held a 7-2 edge in corners.Lehighton (16-3) upped its lead to 3-0 with 21:58 left on the clock when the Lawler brothers, Patrick and Chris combined to find the goal crease. Chris threw it in from the left side and Patrick headed it past Fryer for the score.Zeka Elkhyati scored the final Lehighton goal off a Christoff assist, going head to head with Fryer and finished things off.""We did a pretty good job controlling the play," Yob said. "We had our lulls, but I would probably say 80 to 85 percent of the loose balls we ended up winning, which is good for us.Yob didn't even realize that the Hurricanes didn't get a shot on goal in the first half."That was the one real question mark that we had coming into the season was defense," he added. "We graduated two starters. Last year we played a 3-5-2. We changed up what we were doing and went to a four-back system. Chris Lawler and Josh Knappenberger were both D-mids last year. All we did was slide them back into the center. So we weren't really sure what was going to happen."Things have really worked out well. They cover for each other nicely. Our outside backs, Haris Cokrlija and Craig Serfass do a nice job."The Indians know they have their work cut out for them facing Blue Mountain again.