Throughout the season, the Northwestern Lehigh boys soccer team developed a bit of a swagger.

And why not?

After all, the wins were piling up and the confidence was growing. The Tigers finished the regular season unbeaten and were riding high.

Northwestern took the pitch expecting to win every game.

Then all of a sudden, the Tigers hit a bump.

Southern Lehigh beat Northwestern in overtime in the Colonial League championship game. The unblemished season – along with some of the swagger – were gone.

But it didn’t take long for Northwestern to get it back

When the District 11 playoffs opened a week later, the Tigers winning streak started anew and before long they were district champions. Going into states, the swagger was back and although the opponents got tougher, Northwestern has now rolled to the point where they have a chance to be the only Class 2A playoff team to not have their postseason end with a loss.

Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. at Eagle View Middle School in Mechanicsburg, the Tigers (25-1) will face Lancaster Catholic for the State Championship.

The Crusaders (17-5-2) are unlikely combatants in the PIAA finals. The team missed districts in 2020 before going to the District 3 semifinals last season. This year, they reached the district final for the first time in the school’s history, but lost to Fleetwood, who the Tigers downed in the PIAA quarterfinal game last Saturday at Emmaus High School. Now, they not only have their first PIAA tournament win under their belts but are a win away from being state champions.

“This time of year, every team you face is going to be good,” said Northwestern coach Nate Hunsicker. “I think our guys are ready for whatever gets thrown at us and they are ready to take this thing all the way.”

Looking back, the players have talked about that loss to Southern Lehigh in the league finals and believe that they have been able to refocus themselves on the task at hand since that loss.

With their win over Lewisburg by virtue of penalty kicks on Wednesday in the PIAA semis, the team has won in just about every possible way during the postseason.

For much of the season, the tandem of senior Josh Zellner and junior Matt Johnson were the guys appearing most in the box scores. The pair struggled to score goals for a few games in the playoffs and it might have turned the Tigers into a more complete team. With Zellner dealing with an illness and Johnson constantly getting banged around by opponents, younger players like sophomore Jacob Van Lierop stepped up. Van Lierop scored the go-ahead goal against Moravian Academy in the Colonial League playoffs and then scored the winning goal in the win over Fleetwood in states. He also picked up the deciding penalty kick goal against Lewisburg in the semis on Wednesday.

It’s been part of an incredible postseason performance from Van Lierop, who scored just four goals during the regular season, but has already notched five in the postseason, including goals in all three of the state playoff games.

Van Lierop may have been somewhat prophetic after the team’s win over Fleetwood. “I don’t think we will be beaten. We are so focused and just playing so well right now that it’s just so great to be a part of something like this,” said the sophomore.

The defense of the Tigers has also been daunting for opponents to try to crack. Northwestern Lehigh has given up a total of just one goal in its three state playoff games. Since their league finals loss to the Spartans, Northwestern has allowed just two postseason goals in six games.

STATE PLAYOFF EXPERIENCE ... Northwestern has reached the state playoffs in seven of last eight years with their only miss during that span coming in 2018. The Tigers are in the 2A classification for the first season since 2015. As a 3A school they reached the state finals in both 2016 and 2017, falling to Lower Dauphin in both of those seasons.

LONG ROAD … Forgive Lancaster Catholic if it is a little road weary. If you go by total miles, the Crusaders probably had the longest road to the finals of any team in the state tournament. They opened states with a 133-mile trip to Bald Eagle High School and then traveled 175 miles to Somerset Area High School in western Pennsylvania. For the semis, they traveled 216 miles to Norwin High School. After all that traveling, it’s probably going to seem like a short stroll to go the 54 miles today to Eagle View Middle School. All together, that will be a total of 578 one-way miles or 1,156 miles round trip. By contrast, the Tigers have traveled approximately 294 miles round trip in states.