The Northwestern Lehigh Lady Tigers are the new queens of Colonial League girls soccer. With a 3-0 win over Southern Lehigh in Saturday’s league championship, the Lady Tigers have now won two straight titles. The two wins come on the heels of a four-season run by Southern Lehigh to capture league gold.

Early on, it was actually Southern Lehigh that seized control of the game’s tempo and put plenty of pressure on goalie Naomi Glassberg. The sophomore goalkeeper was up to the task and stopped or deflected everything that the Lady Spartans threw at her. The closest thing to a goal was when Southern Lehigh was pressuring and a shot clanged off the crossbar, coming back onto the field. The Northwestern Lehigh defense stood strong and cleared the ball.

“I was kind of nervous at first,” said Glassberg. “When we got that first goal, it helped me to settle in a little bit. From there, I just kept my composure the rest of the game and the extra goals certainly helped.”

That first goal that Glassberg referred to came when Sophia Motolese took a pass from Olivia Motolese and beat goalie Ava Foran to put Northwestern up 1-0. Just before the goal, Kayla Bardonner had headed a ball off a free kick, with the shot finding Foran out of position. Unfortunately for Northwestern, the shot sailed just wide of the net. The near-miss did appear to jump start the Northwestern offense.

As Northwestern looked for a second goal and some breathing room, the Tigers didn’t have to look too hard and they had to do very little to get the goal.

Southern Lehigh shot themselves in the foot when what looked like an innocent pass back to Foran went horribly wrong. The pass came from Foran’s left, but went well to her right. She scrambled to stop the ball, which went just barely through the mouth of the goal for a Lady Tigers goal.

The goal goes to the last Tigers player to have touched the ball, which was Camryn Fitch. The 2-0 lead going into halftime allowed Northwestern to breathe a little easier coming into the final 40 minutes of play.

Both Glassberg and Foran put on a show to keep the game at 2-0.

“She’s only a sophomore and she was tremendous,” said coach Kelly Bleam of Glassberg’s efforts in her first two seasons. “She’s a reason why we’ve been successful; she just does a fantastic job. She has a great career ahead of her and she’s composed well beyond her years. I can’t say enough.”

It looked like the defenses would carry the entire second half until Sophia Motolese delivered a long kick to the middle of the field about 20 yards in front of the net. A Southern Lehigh player headed the ball, but Kylie Zentz jumped in front of a defender and got a shot past Foran to stretch the game to 3-0.

“When we went up 3-0, we just settled down and kept our heads up after that because we knew we were in good shape and we were going to be going into districts as a league champion,” said Zentz.

A Colonial League final with either Southern Lehigh or Northwestern Lehigh and sometimes both, is a tradition for the league. For at least the last 22 seasons at least one of the two teams have been in the finals and one or the other has the championship in seven of the last eight seasons, with just Salisbury interrupting the streak in 2016 when they beat the Lady Tigers.

The league title gives Northwestern the number-two seed in the 3A girls soccer playoffs, with Pottsville claiming the top spot. Both teams will have a first-round bye, while Southern Lehigh has to play a quarterfinal round game against Bangor. If things progress the way they are likely to, the Tigers and Spartans will play each other in the semifinals on Saturday. Southern Lehigh is the third seed, Bangor is number six.

“I’m sure they’ll be psyched for revenge and it’s going to be a heck of a game. It always is with this team,” said Bleam of the potential to be playing Southern Lehigh in districts.