On a day when blustery winds made every kick an adventure, Joe Marks made sure it was a great adventure for Lehighton.

Marks scored a first half hat trick to lead the Indians to a 3-1 victory over Notre Dame in the quarterfinal round of the District 11 Class AA boys soccer playoffs.Marks, who led Lehighton and entire Schuylkill League with 20 regular season goals, has continued to display his offensive firepower in the postseason.The Indians' forward scored in both of his team's Schuylkill League playoff games last week. Thursday against Notre Dame, Marks showed that not only can he score, but he can do it in a variety of ways."Joe finds a way to put the ball in the net," said Lehighton coach Dave Yob. "Tonight, he got his goals in a number of different ways. He's always around the ball and he knows how to finish when he gets an opportunity."Marks got his first opportunity a little less than nine minutes into the game. Chris Lawler initiated the scoring chance with a long throw in from deep in the attacking zone. Dan Baka then headed the ball down to Marks who finished for a 1-0 Indian lead."Notre Dame got off to a nice start and had the better of the play for the opening five minutes or so," said Yob. "But once Joe got that first goal, I think the entire team relaxed and started to play much better. I though we controlled the rest of the first half."Marks made it 2-0 with 15:07 remaining in the half as he got a shot off a scramble in front of the goal and buried it into the lower right corner of the net.He finished his big half when he took a nice pass from Zach Christoff and broke away from the Notre Dame defense before finishing with a left footed boot that glanced off the post and into the net."I got great assists on all of my goals," said Marks. "My teammates did a nice job of setting me up and I feel like anytime I have an opportunity in the box I should score. Fortunately, I was able to do that today."Notre Dame took advantage of the change in ends of the field during the second half as it controlled play and had the better scoring chances with the wind at its back."We told our kids at halftime that we wanted to keep attacking and not sit back in a defensive shell," said Yob. "But we struggled to keep possession of the ball going into the wind and didn't establish much offensively."You also have to give Notre Dame some credit for that. They come from a very strong (Colonial) league and they played a nice second half."The Crusaders (9-9-1) got on the board when Pat Elward's bouncer from about 30 yards out got past Lehighton goalie Tyler Dietz with 25:20 remaining.Notre Dame had several other opportunities to get closer, but Dietz came up big, stopping a pair of breakaways in the final 15 minutes."Tyler misplayed the ball on their goal," said Yob. "But give him credit. He came back to make some nice saves."A goalie has to have a short memory and Tyler showed that today. If he would have been thinking about the one that got past him, Notre Dame could have had a second or even third goal."Notre Dame coach Sahr Mbriwa said the difference in the game was Marks' ability to capitalize on his chances."We did our homework on them and knew Marks was a good offensive player," said Mbriwa. "I didn't think we did a bad job defensively, but Marks finished his chances in the first half and we couldn't finish enough of ours in the second half."Lehighton (16-3) will face Northwestern on Tuesday at a site and time to be determined.