In the final home game of the high school career for seniors on the Northwestern Lehigh varsity soccer teams, they all left the field with what will be good memories of their time at Tiger Stadium.

Both teams opened play in the PIAA tournament on Tuesday and both picked up first-round wins with the girls downing Holy Redeemer 2-1 and the boys besting Masterman High School 4-0 to advance to the quarterfinal round of states.

For the third straight game, Brooke Balliet put the Lady Tigers (18-5-1) on the board with the game’s first goal and on Tuesday, picked up the game’s second goal as well.

“Getting two goals so quickly just really picks up my energy,” said Balliet. “I just want to go and keep going at that point.”

Tigers’ goalkeeper Naomi Glassberg also had a big game. On a sequence in front of the goal, Quinn Conrey kicked a ball away from the goal, but a Holy Redeemer player was able to play the ball back on net immediately. Glassberg made the save and fell on the ball to prevent any further issues.

“Our whole defense helps me out a lot,” said Glassberg. “The last two games I have faced more shots than I have all year, but they have been so solid and have kept the shots to a minimum; they’re awesome.”

For the boys, Josh Zellner, Jacob Van Lierop, Cayden Fitch, and Jack Mauro all tallied goals. Zellner played a rebound off the post created by a shot from Matt Johnson and put it past goalkeeper Nery Tlapaya for a 1-0 lead. The prettiest goal of the night came when Johnson beat two defenders, fed the ball to Zellner, who then played the ball out to Van Lierop, who beat Tlapaya one-on-one.

Fitch’s goal blasted off from the top of the box and left Tlapaya little time to react.

“The ball was already on my left and the defender thought I was going to shoot it, so I crossed it over and hit it with my right because I saw the goalie wasn’t on the near post,” said Fitch of his goal that put the Tigers (22-1-0) up 3-0. “We just keep coming out every night with a lot of energy and work hard from back to front and keep a lot of pressure on the ball and force mistakes.”

After hitting the crossbar earlier, Mauro found an easier shot while amid a group of players in front of the net and tapped it in for the final score of the game.

“We played really well, but Masterman gave us a big punch in the mouth in the first five or 10 minutes,” said coach Nate Hunsicker. “They came out with a lot of energy and played a 4-3-3 and really got after it, with high pressing. That was part of their demise though because they got gassed and 15 or 20 minutes in, they were chasing us. We anticipated them having another punch like that to start the second half and it just never came.”

Both teams move on to the second round of state playoffs. The girls will meet Wyomissing (20-1-0) in the quarterfinals on Saturday while the boys take on Fleetwood (20-0-1). The games will be played at neutral sites.