While the Northwestern Lehigh field hockey team saw its string of shutouts snapped at five straight, the Tigers still won a pair of games recently, beating Saucon Valley 6-0 and then edging Southern Lehigh at home in a 3-2 Tigers win.

Senior Olivia Costa guided the offense with four goals in Northwestern’s win over Saucon Valley (3-4-0, 4-5-0) while assisting on another. Costa got support from teammates Cara Thomas and Haley Kershner in what would be the sixth shutout of the year for the Lady Tigers (8-0-0 Colonial, 8-0-0 overall).

The win over Southern Lehigh (6-1-0, 7-2-0) was somewhat of an offensive battle through the first two quarters before turning into a defensive war in the second half.

With Southern Lehigh up 1-0, Cara Thomas scored the first of her three goals in the game with 6:39 left to play in the first quarter to tie the game.

Goal number two on the day came a little more than three minutes later from Thomas to make it 2-1 Northwestern at the end of the first quarter of play.

The Lady Spartans then knotted the score at 2-2 in the second quarter only to have Thomas break the tie with 3:30 before halftime, giving the Tigers a 3-2 lead. Southern Lehigh had a distinct advantage in penalty corners at 14-2, but the Tigers outshot the Spartans 9-8.

Neither defense gave up a goal in the final two quarters and the Tigers handed the Spartans their first league loss of the season, while Northwestern remains undefeated in both league and district play. The only other undefeated team in District 11 is the defending state champion Emmaus in the 3A classification.

The upcoming schedule has league games against Bangor (3-2-1, 3-5-1) and Lehighton (3-3-1, 4-3-1) before facing Crestwood (4-2-0) in a nonleague game on Monday.

From there, the schedule has a tough stretch of games as the Lady Tigers play three games in three days and after two days off play another three-day stretch of games to give them six games in eight days. The first three games are all at home, but the second stretch is all on the road with trips to Oley Valley, Northern Lehigh, and Palmerton.