Northwestern got off to a fast start when it played Jim Thorpe during the regular season.

Tiger head coach Nate Hunsicker was hoping for a repeat when the two teams met Monday in the quarterfinal round of the Colonial League playoffs.

Thanks to senior Logan Mesics, Hunsicker got his wish.

Mesics scored three times in the game’s first seven minutes and finished the evening with five goals to help lead the top-seeded Tigers to a 7-0 victory and a berth in the semifinals.

“When we played them earlier, we jumped out pretty quick on them,” said Hunsicker. “So we were kind of preaching that leading up to the game that if we can kind of replicate the ball movement that we saw the last time that we played them, and just come out and fire on all cylinders — which we did tonight — that it would kind of make the 80-minute match a little bit easier for us.

“I loved how we looked tonight. We looked really aggressive, we exploited their gaps and hopefully we can keep doing that for a handful more games.”

It didn’t take long for Mesics to fulfill his coach’s request, getting — and converting — a penalty kick just 25 seconds into the contest.

Less than four minutes later, he sent a shot into the corner to extend the margin to 2-0. Then, at the 33:09 mark he was on the scoreboard again, getting a pass from Lyle Good and blasting it past Olympian keeper Liam Off.

“A lot of times I look at the keeper, I take a look right before I shoot and whichever way he’s kind of leaning I go the other way,” said Mesics on his strategy of taking a penalty kick. “He kind of didn’t move, though, so I just placed it to the side.

“Definitely they had a strategy coming into the game,” added Mesics about the eighth-seeded Olympians marking teammate Cole Mertz. “It was just all about finding space, just finding pockets of space and eventually me and Cole were able to do that, and that’s how we ended up being so successful tonight.”

The Tigers’ first-half success — they scored all their goals in the opening 40 minutes — continued when Caelan Stangil slipped a shot past Off to make it 4-0.

Mesics received a one-touch pass from Stangil with 17:55 left until halftime to tally his fourth goal of the game.

“They were man marking Cole to start the game,” said Hunsicker. “And then when Logan kind of got hot they were doing a double pivot and man marking both of them, which was creating even more gaps that we were doing a really nice job of exploiting, but we have four guys that are pretty lethal ... and you can’t man mark all four of them, so when we get rocking on all cylinders we’re a really dangerous team to defend.”

While the Tigers were putting up goals, it wasn’t a reflection on the play of Off, who made a number of quality saves.

“The game could have gotten out of hand a lot quicker than what it did,” said Hunsicker. “So full credit to him (Off). He made some huge plays ... he played a heck of a match. I can empathize as a former keeper, when you leave that many get in behind you, you feel like you didn’t do your job, but it’s a team effort and he has nothing to hang his head about. He played a tremendous game today.”

Then again, so did Mesics.

After Mertz posted a goal to make it 6-0 with 12:04 remaining in the opening half, Mesics recorded his fifth with just 16 seconds left until the break. Mertz fired a shot on goal that Off saved but couldn’t control, and the senior knocked in the rebound.

“This my first (five-goal game) ... It’s the right time to do it,” said Mesics. “We’re definitely in our best form, I’d say, right now toward the end of the season which is always what you want to do. And we can only go up from here, and it’s looking good.”

TOUGH OPPONENT ... Jim Thorpe knew it had its hands full facing the Tigers. “Obviously, they’re a great team, two-time state champion in the last three years,” said Olympian mentor Mike Dudak. “I told my boys just to come out and play, just play the game. Don’t start the game off defeated just because you’re playing a team that’s stout. And we did, we improved on how we played them the first time. It does hurt getting a PK right off the jump. That makes it difficult.”

ROAD AHEAD ... Northwestern will face No. 4 Palisades in the semifinal round Wednesday at Catasauqua. The Pirates edged Notre Dame 2-1 in their quarterfinal contest.

REPEAT PATH ... Dudak hopes for some deja vu the rest of the way. “It’s interesting,” he said. “We ended up this year with the same record, we played Northwestern in Colonials last year, and our path to the district title is the same as last year. We have Bangor, and then probably Blue Mountain and Southern Lehigh. Those are all winnable games if we play our normal game and have our heads in it. We’re equally matched with all three of those teams.”

Northwestern 7, Jim Thorpe 0

Jim Thorpe 0 0 - 0

Northwestern 7 0 - 7

Goals: Jim Thorpe - None; Northwestern - Logan Mesics 5, Caelan Stangil 1, Cole Mertz 1; Assists: Jim Thorpe - None; Northwestern - Caelan Stangil 2, Lyle Good 2, James Bissell 1, Cole Mertz 1.

Records: Jim Thorpe (10-9); Northwestern (18-1).