Soccer games between Northwestern Lehigh and Southern Lehigh aren’t known for being high scoring. The norm is a close, low-scoring game and it’s not at all surprising to see them go into overtime. Saturday night, that’s exactly how things played out between the two teams as they fought for the Colonial League championship. The game had to end on penalty kicks with the Spartans edging the Tigers 4-3 in PKs for a 2-1 win.

At the end of regulation, the two teams were knotted 1-1 and even two overtime periods did nothing to change the score. At that point, the game was set to be decided by penalty kicks, a rule that nobody likes, but concede is necessary. As expected, the penalty kick phase came down to the final kick, with Southern Lehigh’s Luca Prando giving the Spartans the win and the Colonial League Championship.

The win gave Southern Lehigh their first league title since 2012 and sends the Spartans into the district playoffs on the highest of notes. For the Tigers, the loss moved them down to the fourth seed in the tournament, which gets underway on Thursday when Northwestern Lehigh travels to Bangor for a quarterfinal game against the Slaters.

“They’ve beat us twice now by one,” said coach Nate Hunsicker, referring to a Spartans 2-1 win during the regular season. “We’re looking to get a little redemption.”

Southern Lehigh struck first when Gavin Bealer launched a shot from 45 feet and got it past goalie Austin Vogwill for a 1-0 lead that carried into halftime.

Shortly into the second half, Northwestern had a game-tying goal negated. Seth Brady took a pass through the middle, made a couple of smooth moves and beat goalkeeper Ayden Sharper. Unfortunately, the sound of a whistle carried through the fall air from the far side of the field, signaling an offside call that canceled the goal. Just a couple minutes later, Seth Brady seemed to put every muscle he had into a kick, but Sharper stopped the laser and covered it up to be sure it wasn’t going anywhere.

Neither incident appeared to dampen the Tigers spirits as they went right back to playing a strong game and putting pressure on Sharper. Soon another whistle blew, but this time it was against Southern Lehigh and gave the Tigers just the break they needed when they were awarded a penalty kick.

Senior Jeff Garcia made the kick, faking out Sharper and driving the ball to the left side of the net while Sharper dove right as Northwestern tied the game 1-1. As time was running out in regulation, Garcia unloaded a shot from 30 yards out only to see it be stopped by Sharper.

Northwestern went into pure domination mode in overtime and easily dominated play in both of the extra periods. The only thing missing from turning the Southern Lehigh goal into a shooting gallery were little metal ducks going across the back of the net. However, some of the Tigers shots went wide while others sailed over the crossbar. Those that were on target were stopped by Sharper before they could reach the imaginary ducks at the back of the goal.

Meanwhile, when the Spartans would seem to be in position for a shot, Northwestern would find a way to send the play down to the other end of the field as they breezed through the Southern Lehigh defense. When all was said and done through both overtime periods, Sharper had made 12 saves in the game and the two teams were still tied 1-1.

Garcia, who is known as one of the best penalty kickers in the area, lined up to shoot first and put his shot over the crossbar, surprising just about everyone in attendance. “When you get to that PK situation, you know when you miss that first one that you are really behind the eight-ball,” said Hunsicker. “Jeff [Garcia] misses that shot next to never so that was just out of character for him.”

Southern Lehigh gained the advantage when Bealer, who shot first for the Spartans, sent his shot past Vogwill to give the Spartans a 1-0 edge. Colin Coffield converted his shot as did Southern Lehigh’s Tyler King. The third round would find the Tigers evening up the penalty kick phase when Josh Zellner made Sharper dive but the ball went off his hands and into the net. Landon Bealer put a shot wide of the goal and the two teams were at 2-2 through three rounds. Lucas van Lierop went high on his shot for Northwestern and saw his shot sail over the crossbar for Northwestern and Michael Cocozza regained the edge for the Spartans when he reached the back of the net to finish the fourth round.

With the game coming down to the final round, Seth Brady had to make his shot to keep Northwestern Lehigh’s hopes alive and he nailed it. From there, Luca Prando was last man up for Southern Lehigh and he didn’t miss, setting off the celebration for the Spartans.

“We fought really hard and had the better of the play in the second half, we just didn’t finish our chances,” said Hunsicker. “We thoroughly outplayed them even in the two overtime periods, but then when you go into the PK situation it’s a crapshoot.”

The growing rivalry will likely continue in districts. Last season, the two teams met in the District 11 finals in a game that went to overtime and was won by the Tigers when Garcia delivered a highlight reel shot on a bicycle kick. If Northwestern eliminated Bangor in Thursday’s quarterfinals, the two teams would meet again in this year’s semifinals. Southern Lehigh is the top seed and have a bye through to the semifinals.

Saturday finished off what some called Championship Saturday that saw Northwestern Lehigh and Southern Lehigh meet in three different games to determine the Colonial League champion. The day started with Northwestern downing Southern Lehigh in field hockey and then, the Lady Tigers took the gold medals in soccer just prior to the boys game.

If one meeting of teams from Southern Lehigh and Northwestern Lehigh weren’t enough, there were actually three meetings. The two teams met in field hockey and both boys and girls soccer for Colonial League championships. The Lady Tigers won their games in field hockey and soccer to claim gold medals, but the sweep just wasn’t to be as the day’s finale went to Southern Lehigh.