It’s the game that Northwestern soccer fans look for every season and circle on the schedule. The meeting between fierce rivals Northwestern Lehigh and Southern Lehigh is generally a close, low scoring game that serves as a prelude to a planned postseason matchup between the two teams. This year’s game was played at Southern Lehigh and stuck to the script of previous matchups. Unfortunately, the script didn’t go in favor of the Tigers, who fell in a 2-1 overtime battle with the Spartans.
Jack Mauro scored the only goal of the game for Northwestern, while Landon Bealer and Jack Johnson hit the back of the goal for the Spartans (3-1 Colonial League, 4-1-1 overall). The loss dropped Northwestern Lehigh to 2-1 overall on the season and 1-1 in the Colonial League.
“It was the typical rough game between two teams that are always competitive,” said coach Nate Hunsicker. “Unfortunately, this time they were the team that came out on top. Now, it’s time for us to just move on to the rest of the schedule and get back to winning games.
“We might get another shot at them down the road, but we have to focus on winning games and not let this one get into our heads or worry about what might happen later in the season.”
The Tigers rebounded with a win over Palmerton (0-4, 1-4) just two days after the difficult loss. The win may have served to take out some frustrations for Northwestern as they pounded the net with nine goals from nine different players on their way to a 9-0 win over the Blue Bombers.
Mauro again scored for the Tigers, as did Matt Johnson, Josh Zellner, Cayden Fitch, Dominic Yeakel, Lucas Van Lierop, Bailey Blaise, Isaac Frey, and Skyler Romanuski.
Palmerton was unable to get any corners, while Northwestern was awarded seven corner kicks in the game. The Tigers defense also prevented the Bombers from getting any shots on goal.
A scheduled game with Notre Dame – Green Pond (2-1, 3-1) for early this week was canceled because of COVID issues at Notre Dame. The Tigers are on the road for their next two games, playing at Bangor (1-2, 1-3) today and then traveling to Saucon Valley (2-0, 2-0) on Monday. The Tigers return home next Wednesday to play Palisades (4-0, 4-1) in a key Colonial League contest.