The Northwestern girls soccer team Lehigh wrapped up an undefeated regular season with a 10-1 win over Catasauqua (3-11-1, 4-12-1) Tuesday night, wrapping up their final week of the season with wins over Northern Lehigh (10-4-1, 12-5-1) and Wilson before beating the Rough Riders in the finale.

Against Northern Lehigh at Tiger Stadium the Lady Tigers (15-0-0 Colonial, 18-0-0 overall) used four goals from Paige Bissell, including two goals in the first 11 minutes of the game, to roll to the 7-0 victory.

Bissell picked up her first goal 5:56 into the first half when she moved down field, beat defenders and deposited the ball into the right side corner of the net for an early 1-0 lead for Northwestern.

Less than five minutes later, Bissell took a crossing pass from sophomore Sophia Schaffer and again beat goalie Dekotah Barthold for her second goal of the night and 19th of the season.

Schaffer has become a key player on the Northwestern attack and one of her strengths is placing the ball for other players to record goals.

With 19:28 remaining, Schaffer again sent a perfect crossing pass in front of the goal and sophomore classmate Amelia Glassberg who never broke stride to put a shot into the back of the net for a 3-0 edge for the Lady Tigers.

“We came out and tried to get on top of them quickly and that was all part of our plan to try to get a couple of early goals,” said Bissell, who is a senior. “We came out with a lot of intensity, and I think that was a big factor in this win tonight.”

With less than :10 left in the half, Northwestern was awarded a corner kick and Bissell moved quickly to get the ball to the middle of the field and Kherington Yezik took a shot and played her own rebound to record her 15th goal of the season as the clock reached the :01 mark and the scoreboard showed a 4-0 lead for Northwestern Lehigh.

Considering that Northwestern’s defense has allowed just six goals all season, the four-goal deficit left the Bulldogs (9-4-1, 12-5-1) with a daunting task ahead of them for the second half.

Things got even more difficult when the Tigers’ Brook Balliet took a pass from Bissell as Barthold came out of the goal mouth in an attempt to cut down Balliet’s angle and instead watched as the ball sailed past her and into the goal for a 5-0 advantage for Northwestern.

Bissell scored two more times in the second half to make it a 7-0 win.

The shutout was the 12th of the season for Northwestern and goalie Olivia Reinhart as the defense continues to play tough soccer and limit the opportunities that other teams get to take shots at Reinhart.

Senior Olivia Spatz likes the play of the defense this season and says that the defenders pride themselves on keeping the other team scoreless.

“We focus on wins first, but we want shutouts every game and it’s something that we work for, so we are always glad to get away with a shutout,” said Spatz.

Bissell took the team lead in points with five goals and six assists in two wins this week over Northern Lehigh and Wilson. The senior forward has 22 goals and 27 assists this season while Schaffer now also has 22 goals and 20 assists. Bissell and Schaffer rank fourth and fifth, respectively, in the Colonial League in points scored, followed by Yezik’s 54 points have her ranked seventh and Balliet is ninth with 48 points.

In addition to Schaffer and Yezik having memorable seasons, fellow sophomores Glassberg and Dylan Ritter have had impressive seasons for the Lady Tigers.

“We start four sophomores, and we had four starting last season, so they have a full season of experience, and we have two more that come off the bench early for us and they all contribute,” said Northwestern head coach Jordan Smith.

Northwestern has wrapped up the top seed in the Colonial League playoffs which begin next week. In the past, the top two seeds received a first-round bye, but with the league expanding the playoffs from six to eight teams, Northwestern would host Notre Dame – Green Pond (5-6-3, 6-9-2), the eighth seed in the quarterfinal round.