Counting back to last season, the Northwestern Lehigh boys soccer team had won 31 straight games, including last seasons’ District 11 and PIAA championships.

One could argue that the Tigers have played some of their best soccer in this year’s PIAA tournament, but that all ended at Blue Mountain High School when the Tigers fell to District 3 runner up Camp Hill in Tuesday’s PIAA quarterfinals by a 1-0 score.

It was one of those days where Northwestern just couldn’t catch a break. Neither team looked particularly sharp early on, but in the final 10 minutes of the first half, both seemed to have locked in on what they wanted to do and started to play a more competitive game.

The Tigers had a brisk wind to their backs in the first half and it appeared to cost Isaac Frey a goal. As the ball appeared headed toward the top part of the goal and goalie Mac Sarff readied to try to jump for the ball, the wind carried the ball up and over the crossbar.

Minutes later, Tigers goalkeeper Brandon Krapf made an athletic stop on a shot by Miller Nelson and the game remained scoreless going into halftime.

Two noncalls went against Northwestern (24-1-0) in the second half. The first came when Jake Van Lierop was pulled down in the box and the second came late in the second half when Matt Johnson was taken to the ground in the box and again, there was no call made.

Meanwhile, Camp Hill (18-2-2) was able to get a centering pass to Ty Kirchhoff and when Krapf came out to try to cut down the angle, Kirchhoff put a shot on goal that glanced off Krapf and had enough strength to roll into the far corner of the goal before a Northwestern defender could make a save. The goal gave the Lions a 1-0 lead with 26:50 left in the game.

“We had a sloppy turnover in the midfield and were kind out of shape and sort of chasing the ball,” said Northwestern Lehigh coach Nate Hunsicker. “Credit to their forward [Kirchhoff] because he made a nice finish, stayed cool, calm and collected and found the back of the net.”

Nate Kinzel had a late opportunity to tie the game, but Sarff made a leaping grab of the shot to turn away Northwestern Lehigh.

“We just weren’t connecting in the final third of the field,” said Hunsicker. “We had a couple of really good opportunities where we finally broke their back line and we had kids get tugged down in the box and there was no call on those. We just started panicking too early and tried to get it all back at once and we had 20 minutes left at that point and there was plenty of time to get an equalizer and even a game-winner from there.”

The loss snapped a streak of 31 straight wins dating back to last season and marked the first time that the Tigers had been shutout since Nov. 16, 2021, a streak of 51 games going back to their 2-0 loss to Bishop Shanahan in the state playoffs.

“Their defense didn’t really do anything we didn’t expect,” said Northwestern coach Nate Hunsicker. “We just weren’t quite where we needed to be today and made a couple mistakes and had some things go against us and that was the difference.”

Matt Johnson finishes his high school career with 101 goals, the all-time mark for Northwestern Lehigh soccer. A total of seven seniors – Johnson, Frey, Mark Boushell, Zach Grim, Nicholas Krum, Caden Mertz, and Tim Zellner – leave holes to fill for next season.

“These seniors won a state championship last season, went four-for-four in winning district titles and their tenure brought a lot of success and a lot of fun on and off the field,” said Hunsicker.