Nazareth girls lacrosse head coach Michelle Mihalko is in her second season leading the Blue Eagles, but she has already gotten the program to make great strides.

Last year, Nazareth qualified for districts before bowing out to Mihalko’s former team, the Easton Red Rovers. This season, Nazareth (6-0) looks to be a serious contender for a district championship, and it showed against Northwestern Lehigh in a 17-7 win over the Tigers.

The Northwestern program has also come a long way, but they are still going to face an uphill battle against some of the bigger programs in the area and Mihalko has made Nazareth one of those programs.

Northwestern fell behind 1-0 before Sydney Wright tied the game getting a goal off a penalty with 4:27 remaining in the first quarter. Nazareth was able to grab a goal late in the quarter to take a 2-1 lead before coming out in the second quarter and going on an offensive roll.

The quarter opened with five unanswered goals for Nazareth before Ella Collins took a strong pass from Olivia Costa to make it 7-2.

Later in the second quarter, Northwestern scored twice within :37 as Olivia Spatz got her first goal of the game and Collins picked up her second. Nazareth was able to shut down the momentum by getting a goal just :22 before halftime as the Tigers trailed 10-4 at the break.

Nazareth shut down Northwestern in the third quarter, but that did not mean that the Tigers were going to roll over in the final quarter. Instead, Northwestern came out firing and got a quick goal from Olivia Fagan off a Nazareth penalty before getting two late goals. The first came from Wright with just 2:37 left to play and with 1:13 remaining, Cara Thomas got her first of the game for Northwestern Lehigh. Nazareth got a goal at the buzzer to finish the game with a 17-7 win.

Over the next week, Northwestern (1-2) faces Allentown Central Catholic (1-3), Emmaus (2-3), Southern Lehigh (3-0), and Parkland (2-2). With the exception of the game against Central Catholic, all of the upcoming games are on the road.