The Northwestern Lehigh boys soccer team didn’t play its best game of the season Tuesday.

Other than a late first-half spurt that saw the Tigers get two goals in just under two minutes, head coach Nate Hunsicker was not happy with his team’s first half play.

But the Tigers played well enough to win their 27th straight game and take another step toward a state championship with an 8-2 win over Notre Dame – Green Pond (17-7-1) in the semifinal round of the PIAA Class 2A tournament.

Senior forward Jacob van Lierop also moved past former teammate Matt Johnson as the program’s career goal scoring leader when he scored his third goal of the game and 102nd of his high school career.

Van Lierop’s first goal was set up by a feed from Cole Mertz. With goalie Mark Perone directly in front of him, van Lierop ran under the ball and put it off the side of his foot and behind Perone.

For the next 20 minutes the game was a defensive exhibition with Perone and Northwestern’s Brandon Krapf making big stops.

With less than two minutes left in the first half, Northwestern’s Jack Mauro got a centering pass to van Lierop, who kicked the ball backward to teammate Caelan Stangil.

Perone saw Stangil setting up to shoot with his left foot and moved to his right, but Stangil pulled the ball to the other side. Perone was unable to stop the shot as the Tigers went up 2-0.

Northwestern extended the team when Stangil played a ball into the box to van Lierop, who made a spin move around one defender and then fired the ball between Perone and another defender as Northwestern took a three-goal lead with :03.2 left in the first half.

“Honestly, I thought that we did not play very well in the half,” said coach Nate Hunsicker. “We just capitalized on a couple of mistakes and were pretty aggressive in the last four minutes, so that kind of made up for our not playing very well in the rest of the half.”

The two late goals did nothing to kill the Crusaders’ confidence as they came out and 4:27 into the second half, Isaiah Miles pushed the ball to Paul Hartman and as he did, Krapf came out of the goal to defend a shot. Hartman beat him with a strong left-footed shot that cut the Northwestern lead to 3-1.

“Notre Dame came out with a lot of energy in the second half, and they buried one on us,” said Hunsicker. “We knew the next goal in the game was going to be massive and we were able to get the next one and then picked up our play and got some more. I’m really excited and I’m happy for the kids.”

The middle portion of the second half saw five goals scored in a seven-and-a-half minute stretch as Mertz, Mauro, Stangil, and Van Lierop all scored for Northwestern with Van Lierop’s goal – his third of the game – being the one that made him the Tigers all-time goal scorer. The only other goal that the Crusaders were able to add came when Hartman beat Krapf on a penalty kick, but at the end of the stretch, Northwestern led 7-2 with 15:21 left in the game.

The final goal came after Stangil worked his way around two defenders and put a shot on goal. Mertz came over looking to tip the ball into the corner, but a Notre Dame defender slid to stop Mertz and, in the process, screened Perone, who froze as the ball went to his left for an 8-2 Northwestern lead.

“It was a good game, and we did what we needed to do to win,” said van Leirop. “We didn’t keep it as clean as we wanted, but we got the goals and we’re moving on.

“I knew there was a chance I wasn’t going to get the record, but my team gave me a lot of chances and got a lot of passes to me and created a lot of chances and I was able to put a couple of them away.”

Northwestern will now face Erie’s Cathedral Prep (18-6-0) in Saturday’s 2A championship game, which will be played at Eagle View Middle School in Mechanicsburg at 4 p.m.

The Ramblers are the defending state 3A champions and dropped down to the 2A classification this season. Cathedral Prep, the runners-up in District 10, defeated Avonworth 4-2 in the other semifinal Tuesday.

The Tigers won the state championship in 2022 and will look for their second championship in three seasons on Saturday.