Northwestern Lehigh came into the district playoffs with 21 straight wins, a Colonial League championship to its credit, and with the top seed in the District 11 tournament. In other words, the Tigers a really good team.

Even so, they were not ready to rest on any of that, and they went about tweaking their penalty corner plays to get more goals.

That change resulted in the opening goal of Tuesday night’s district semifinal game at Palmerton as Northwestern went on to beat Moravian Academy 3-0.

Players on both teams tend to take a pretty wide view of what constitutes a foul when they get together. A push here, an elbow there, it’s all part of a physical rivalry that results in close games. That was just how most of the first half played out on Tuesday with both teams banging away at each other and looking for that elusive first goal for momentum.

While the Tigers controlled the majority of play through the first 30 minutes, neither team found an opening. With just under 10 minutes left in the first half, Northwestern was awarded a corner, and that’s where the adjustment came into play. Cole Mertz sent a ball to the area just in front of the net and one player, senior Egan Boyle, was able to rise above the others and head the ball past goalie Jaise Shah to give the Tigers the momentum they were looking for.

“I definitely like the opportunity to get goals; it makes it more fun and interesting for me, and I like having the opportunity to go up on corners and help make a difference,” said Boyle. “All I saw was the keeper in front of me and I knew that all I had to do was beat him, and I was able to do that.”

Boyle now has two goals in the last three games, and three on the season, with both coming due to his increased role on corners. His first of those two goals came against Southern Lehigh in the Colonial League final and also came off of a corner play.

The norm is that every time a goal is scored in a game between Moravian and Northwestern the level of physicality goes up a notch. That held true Tuesday night, and at the 35:08 mark of the second half, Moravian junior Roman Perrucci was given a yellow card. Moravian’s offense seemed to be sparked by the yellow and the need to tie the game, and with 28:15 left in regulation, Trevor King fired a shot toward the top of the Northwestern goal, but goalkeeper Dean Carl showed off a vertical leap and punched the ball over the crossbar to preserve the Tigers lead.

With 15:25 left to play and Moravian keeping Northwestern’s three-headed monster – Cole Mertz, Logan Mesics, and Caelan Stangil – in check, the scoring opportunity simply shifted to freshman Lyle Good when Stangil hustled to catch up to a ball and centered it to Good for Northwestern’s second goal.

“We really needed that goal to get a little breathing room. I know at least for me, I felt a lot more relaxed after we had that two goal lead, knowing we had a little more breathing room,” said the freshman forward, who now has six goals this season.

Again, physical play went up a level, but four minutes after the goal, Mesics sealed his team’s trip to the finals when he played a free kick from Mertz past Shah for a 3-0 Northwestern lead. Moravian’s Rowan Watson was given a yellow card for arguing an official’s call on the goal and even after that, apparently not done speaking and the official then dealt the senior defender a red card leaving his team to play down a player.

Just :30 later, Shah and Selmon Eris were both given yellow cards for Moravian.

While Northwestern is focused only on repeating as district champion for a seventh straight season, the Tigers can breathe a little with the win also guaranteeing a trip to states no matter the outcome of Thursday night’s finals against Palisades back at Palmerton High School.

“It’s nice having that luxury knowing that win or lose, it’s not the end, but we’re all in,” said coach Nate Hunsicker. “We’re not here to be a runner-up; we want that gold medal. I don’t want our streak to drop.”

CONTAINING THE MONSTER … The trio of Mertz, Mesics, and Stangil had gone 10 straight games with each of them scoring at least one goal in every one of those games. Moravian Academy broke that string last night with only Mesics reaching the back of the net. The last time that all three didn’t score in a game was against – Moravian Academy back on Sept. 24.

Moravian Acad. 0 0 - 0

Northwestern 1 2 - 3

Goals: MA – none; NWL – Boyle, Good, Mesics; Saves: MA – Shah (10), Gianforcaro (2); NWL – Carl (3)

Records: Moravian Academy 14-6-1; Northwestern Lehigh 22-1-0