EMMAUS - Northwestern faced the uncertainty that comes with overtime in its Colonial League semifinal and championship matches a couple of weeks ago. And while the results turned out to be beneficial, the Tigers didn't want to leave it up to overtime to decide a district championship.

Junior Kenny Gawelko made sure that didn't happen on Thursday.With under two minutes to play, Gawelko punched in the game-winning tally to lift Northwestern to a 1-0 win over Allentown Central Catholic and the District 11 Class 3A title. The goal, Gawelko's 28th on the year, came on an assist from Dom Mertz in front of a large crowd at Emmaus High School."What I'm really thinking is I do not want to go back to overtime," Gawelko said. "We were absolutely dead tired at the end of both of those games. We were starting to feel it in this one. I was really saying I don't want to go back in [to overtime]. Dominic Mertz found me perfectly with that header, and it was just touch and hit."Other than the uncertainty that comes with overtime, another reason why Northwestern didn't want to play beyond the 80 minutes in regulation was a number of injuries to its top players.Brad Shafer left the game around the midway mark of the second half, and Noah Seng-DeLong exited with 12:01 to play. Both are senior leaders for the team and would have surely been missed in overtime, and if need be, penalty kicks."We honestly needed them to carry us toward the end there," head coach Nate Hunsicker said. "We needed that goal. I did not want to take this game into overtime. He (Gawelko) stepped up and it was important."Obviously that (penalty kicks) was 30-plus minutes away so we weren't quite worrying about that yet. But obviously, as a coach, it's in the back of your head and making those adjustments. I'm very relieved it didn't come to that."The two teams played a scoreless first 40 minutes, but it was Northwestern who seemed to control a majority of the possession. Central Catholic was able to generate some steam offensively in the second half, and junior Adam Zielinski had a free kick on goal early that was punched out of harms way by Tiger goalie Kyle Bellhorn.That was Central's best shot on goal. And while Northwestern had plenty of chances throughout the second half, most coming from Gawelko, it took until the final minutes to finally find the back of the net."They definitely controlled possession a little bit more than what we would have liked, but we definitely had a lot of opportunities as well in the second half," Hunsicker said. "For the most, we kept them not very dangerous on the offensive end going forward. They are a quick-counter team, so we knew if we let our guard down they could quick strike and find the back of our net."BACK TO STATES ... Northwestern (21-0-1) will play the District 4 champion on Tuesday at a site and time to be determined. It comes a year after the Tigers' longest run in states, resulting in a semifinals appearance. "Priority number one is get healthy and ready for Tuesday," Hunsicker said. "We'll be firing on all cylinders, and we are prime to make a run."REPEAT ... Despite bumping up from 2A to 3A, Northwestern saw similar results to last year. The Tigers won their second straight district crown under Hunsicker on Thursday evening.LOSING? WHAT'S THAT? ... Hunsicker isn't a fan of losing. Over the past two years, his team's record is 45-2-1, yet this team was adamant on making a name for itself. "A lot of teams earlier in the summer, earlier in the season, were writing us off because we lost a player who scored 48 goals last year," Gawelko said. "Since we play in the Colonial League, a lot of the EPC teams think they can brush us off."