On Saturday, a mere 15 hours after a physically and emotionally draining loss to Parkland, the Northampton girls soccer team took to Joan Kremus Field to do battle with the second-ranked 3A team in Pennsylvania, Southern Lehigh.

When the final horn sounded, the K-Kids walked off the field as 2-0 winners and perhaps saved their season in the process.

Lauren Straub recorded both goals for Northampton. She broke through at 24:03 of the first half by heading home a service off the foot of Brooke Petraglia. She showcased her speed and gave Northampton a cushion when she outraced the Spartans’ defense for a through ball from Maddie Hurst to bury her ninth goal of the season into the back of the net with 13:48 remaining in the game.

Olivia Vajda stopped all eight of Southern Lehigh’s shots on goal to earn the clean sheet.

No player typified the effort put forth over the two-day stretch better than senior center back Kylie Gilliard. Gilliard, battling sore knees, played all 160 minutes. Head coach Michael Missmer commented on her importance.

“That kid is a monster,” he said. “We have players that probably would have been injured and said, ‘I can’t go’. She is in the category where you would have to physically pull her off the field. On our back line, she is by far the vocal leader out there.”

Gilliard spoke about the difficulty of playing back-to-back games against top competition.

“It was definitely tough,” she said, “but when we came off the field yesterday, we had to drop our emotions and focus on the next game. We knew we had a tough game because they were 14-1 and we knew we had to bring it.”

Beating the Spartans evened the K-Kids’ record at 8-8 and most importantly gave them a little margin for error in their quest to qualify for districts. They need to win one of the remaining two games to extend their season. Wednesday’s game against Whitehall occurred too late for Press deadlines. The final regular season contest will be this afternoon at Moravian Academy.

The Lions are 10-3-1 on the season playing in the Colonial League. Their tie is against 3A state-ranked Northwestern Lehigh, so the game will not be a walkover.

Regardless of the result against Whitehall, the team will not qualify for the EPC tournament. The Kids’ postseason ambitions have been hampered by the fact that Allen did not field a team, depriving Northampton of a pair of league wins.

If the K-Kids sweep their final two games, they will likely be seeded into the district quarterfinals which begin on October 28. District pigtails will be played October 26.