After an eight-day break in the schedule, the Northwestern Lehigh girls soccer team (1-0 Colonial, 4-0 overall) came out looking to score some goals Tuesday night against Jim Thorpe (0-2, 0-3).

Nine goals in the first half allowed younger players to get some time on the field as the Tigers worked their way to a 10-0 win, their third straight shutout against the Olympians at Tiger Stadium.

In just over six minutes, sophomore Sophia Schaffer scored two goals, the second of which was a perfectly placed shot that traveled to the far front corner of the goal to make it a 2-0 game with 33:52 left on the clock.

Another sophomore, Dylan Ritter fired a shot from 22-yards out and got it to the back of the net and before the teams settled back in from that goal, Paige Bissell scored just 33 seconds later and upped the Northwestern advantage to 4-0.

Senior Brook Balliet added a goal with 29:40 left in the first half. She put a shot on goal that it appeared destined to be stopped by freshman goalie Taylor Paul. But the ball bounced out of her hands and into the goal for the fifth score of the night for the Lady Tigers.

Paul gave way to another freshman, Courtney Carr to get treatment to her thumb and Alexis Kercher and Kherington Yezik welcomed Carry by closing out the first half with goals to put Northwestern up 7-0.

“I think our girls were ready to come out here and play tonight,” said Northwestern head coach Jordan Smith. “We had eight days off and we gave them Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off and then had a good practice last night and they were rested and anxious to get back on the field and we saw that tonight.”

With the starters becoming spectators, younger players like Bella Smith and Amelia Glassberg showed off their skills on the field.

Bella Smith beat Carr with a solid shot and the Tigers got their first goal off of a corner when Amelia Glassberg took the insertion pass and played it to the back of the net to make it 9-0 where the score stayed until halftime.

Northwestern added an early second-half goal to make it 10-0.

“I thought our younger girls played really well,” said Jordan Smith. “We didn’t have to change anything up, we were able to just keep our system the same and the girls took to it well and responded for us.”

Northwestern opened with tough opponents in its three first games, facing Fleetwood, Central Columbia and Blue Mountain.

Central Columbia ousted Northwestern in the state semifinals last season and went on to win the PIAA championship.

The Lady Tigers allowed a goal in their opener against Fleetwood but have responded with three straight shutouts since then and outscored their opponents in the first three games by an 8-1 margin.

“I think that we learned a lot about ourselves in those games,” said Balliet. “That gave us a lot of confidence to start the season and we’re really playing well right now, so that was a good test for us. Now, we just have to keep things going from there and keep getting better every time we go out to play.”

The game against Jim Thorpe kicked off a stretch of five games in eight days.

The upcoming schedule includes home games against Notre Dame-Green Pond (1-1, 2-0), Bangor (3-0, 4-0), and Pen Argyl (0-2, 2-2) and road games at Palisades (1-0, 3-0) and Wilson (0-2, 0-2). Northwestern has a stretch of six days off late in the season between playing Wilson and its final game of the season at Catasauqua.