When Northwestern Lehigh and Lehighton met during the regular season, Hailey Rex served 19 straight points to help put her team up 20-1 in the opening set.

The two teams met again Tuesday night at Northwestern’s gymnasium, and the start wasn’t quite as strong, but the Tigers were able to beat the Indians in three sets to advance to Thursday night’s semifinals.

Kayla Schaffer and Lexi George both served five straight points in the first set, and Layla Seither served a four-serve stretch for Northwestern as it jumped out early to take the opener 25-11.

Schaffer served three aces and got help from Jessie Unrath, who was able to get a kill to keep the stretch going.

“I think losing to Notre Dame (in the league playoffs) was a great wake-up call for us and made us see that wins are not guaranteed. At this point, all of the teams that are left are good teams and everybody is going to fight for everything,” said George referring to the league semifinals when Northwestern was up 2-0 over the Crusaders and lost the match 3-2.

Northwestern continued to keep the pressure up in the second set and Lehighton struggled to find any momentum, collecting just four break points.

Lacey Clymer helped the Tigers to four points off of serves, including an ace in the stretch that saw Northwestern go up 20-13. Anna Seyler added two more break points to make it 23-14.

Neither team could hold serve through the rest of the set and the Tigers took a 2-0 lead with a 25-16 win in the second set.

The Tigers won the battle at the net in the second set with Liv Blanken picking up three kills in the set and seven in the match. Marina Breininger, Anna Ebeling and Clymer all had two kills in the set.

“We had good practices and worked a lot on our service,” said Blanken. “We really came into districts with a serious attitude.

“We really want to show how good we are, and now is the time to do that.”

The third set was the closest of the three and saw the game tied at eight different points.

Unlike the first two sets, neither team could hold serve for long, as the match turned into a back-and-forth affair with most points coming on sideouts.

Lehighton was awarded a point for a rotation error by Northwestern Lehigh that tied the set 9-9.

The Indians failed to take the lead because of a missed serve.

Lehighton forced a side out to again tie the set at 10 only to see Northwestern go up 12-10 before the Indians again rallied to tie the set.

Clymer came up with a kill to make it 13-12 and George then added a pair of breakpoints and Northwestern started to roll from there and took the final set 25-17.

“I think our mindset tonight was really strong. We sometimes let off the gas a little, but I think today we realized that we can’t do that at this level,” said George.

“It’s intense, especially for the seniors, because we don’t have room for error.”

UP THE HILL TO POTTSVILLE ... Thursday night Northwestern will travel to Martz Hall in Pottsville for its semifinal match against Panther Valley. The Panthers downed Saucon Valley 3-1 in the other quarterfinal match on Tuesday. Panther Valley is the No. 2 team in 4A with Northwestern seeded third. The two teams did not meet during the regular season but they do have a history. Northwestern was the seventh seed in districts last season and defeated the Panthers, the second seed, 3-1 in last year’s quarterfinal round.

Northwestern 3, Lehighton 0

Lehighton 11 16 17

Northwestern 25 25 25

Records: Northwestern (18-7); Lehighton (12-10).