When the Palisades and Northwestern Lehigh boys soccer teams met during the regular season, the Tigers took awhile to get going but pulled away for a 3-0 victory.

That wasn't the case on Thursday when the two met in the District 11 Class AA quarterfinals, as Northwestern jumped out to an early lead and coasted to a 4-1 win.The No. 1 seeded Tigers will now face No 4 seed Allentown Central Catholic, a winner over Blue Mountain in the quarters, in the semifinal round."Obviously, that was a big key today, striking early, striking often," said Northwestern head coach Nate Hunsicker. "Those were two things we were trying to do."Last time when we faced them, they came out with a very similar look. Unfortunately, it took us until about 30 seconds until halftime until we finally struck. It definitely changed the complexion of the game in the second half then."Getting those early goals in today's game definitely took them out of their strategy a bit so it was key. J.D. Haaf had three awesome goals for us and Brett Scott found him on the two assists. He's been a great player in the midfield for us creating opportunities for us to score."Kyle (Bellhorn, goalkeeper) didn't have to do a whole lot in the first half, but when they had the elements in their favor a little bit more, he definitely stood on his head and kept them off the scoreboard, which was vital."Haaf scored racing down the left side off Scott's first assist just 8:56 into the contest. He added another tally less than three minutes later off another perfect pass from Scott.Shafer scored the third goal with 16:08 left in the first half off another Scott assist.The Tigers packed it in a little bit more in the second half with the three goal lead, playing more of a possession game and all the Pirates could do was push one goal across late.Haaf completed his hat trick with 17:01 remaining in the game on a free kick.STATWATCH. … The Tigers had six shots on goal and five were by Haaf. Palisades actually held the edge with 12 shots, five coming off the foot of Morgan Cooper, who scored his team's lone goal. Bellhorn had 11 saves, while Palisades had just three. The Pirates also held a 6-2 edge in corners.RECORD SETTER. … Scott's three assists made him Northwestern's single season assist record holder with 23.