The Northwestern Lehigh field hockey team won its final three games of the regular season and has added two more wins in the Colonial League playoffs.

On Tuesday night, Northwestern faced Wilson in the semifinals after the Lady Warriors pulled off a slight upset over Palmerton in the quarterfinals.

While Wilson was looking for another upset, the Tigers were in no mood to let them stand in the way of a shot at playing for a league championship. Northwestern scored eight goals over the final three quarters for an 8-0 win at Catasauqua’s Alumni Field as the Tigers advanced to the league semifinals Thursday night at Whitehall High School.

The two teams played through a scoreless first quarter that saw Northwestern dominate play and pick up three corners but were unable to capitalize on any of them. Between quarters the Tigers didn’t make any strategic changes but came out firing in the second quarter.

“We didn’t change anything, but we picked up the intensity,” said Tiger senior Olivia Costa. “We knew we had to become more aggressive and play harder against them and that’s what made the difference through the rest of the game.”

An impressive part of the offense was that the eight goals came from six different players.

Taylor Langley picked up the first goal of the game just 1:10 into the second quarter for her fifth goal of the season.

The next goal showed off some passing skills as Cara Thomas came down the left side of the field and made a pass into the middle to Costa. As the pass was on its way, Thomas cut toward the goal and was positioned perfectly at the left corner of the cage to take a pass from Costa and slide it past goalie Annalisse Mcauliffe to make it 2-0.

Junior Amelia Birch became the third different goal scorer when she picked up her fourth goal of the year with 5:07 remaining before halftime.

Costa then added the first of what would be a two -goal night for her and Northwestern led 4-0 at the half.

Wilson was not awarded any corners on the night and the Northwestern defense stayed a step ahead of any attackers who made moves toward the cage.

Senior Ella Dangello stepped into the mouth of the goal when goalie Ryan Smolinsky had been taken out of position to make a save and came up with a big defensive save to keep the shutout intact.

“We communicate really well back there, and I saw Ryan wasn’t able to get back in time and they were pressuring, so my job is to step in there and look to clear the ball and that’s what I did,” said Dangello. “We really pride ourselves on limiting goals and we never want the other team to get any momentum.”

Just over three minutes into the third quarter, Hannah Gober found herself with an open look at the goal and took advantage of the opportunity to put a shot past Mcauliffe to push the Lady Tigers lead to 5-0.

Northwestern had three corners in the third quarter and as it put a shot on goal during one of them the ball moved toward the corner of the goal where Makayla Bressi was positioned perfectly to tip the ball to the back of the cage as the lead continued to expand.

With the game well in hand, Northwestern focused on defense in the final quarter, but seniors Costa and Thomas were able to add to the scoreboard with goals to make it an 8-0 win for the Tigers.

Northwestern will face the Salisbury Falcons in Thursday’s final. Salisbury, the tournament’s three seed, knocked off number two seed Southern Lehigh 2-0 Tuesday night to earn its spot in the finals.

This is the first time since 2003 that Salisbury has reached the league playoffs, and the Falcons have been one of the surprise stories of the season in field hockey.

“We haven’t seen them since early in the season and I’m sure they’re a different team than we saw then, but so are we,” said coach NW head coach Lissa Opolsky. “They have played really well and I’m sure they feel pretty loose coming in because nobody thought they would be here. That can make a team really dangerous, and we are going to have to play really well against them.”