After finishing the season undefeated and winning a league title last week, the Northwestern boys soccer team kept rolling in it’s first game of the District 11 Class 3A playoffs.

The defending district champ Tigers earned the No. 1 seed and earned a bye into Tuesday’s semifinal round where they faced fifth-seed Southern Lehigh.

Northwestern shut out the Spartans 3-0 to move on to Thursday’s district title game where they will play No. 3 Central Catholic.

“We couldn’t really sit back on anything,” Northwestern senior defender Josh Bryan said, who scored the team’s second goal in the game. “We had to keep scoring and keep the momentum going in our favor. We just did not want to let them get through our defense at all tonight.”

Bryan’s goal came off an assist from fellow senior Brad Shafer at the 16:30 mark in the first half and increased his team’s lead to 2-0 over Southern Lehigh (9-10-1).

Eight minutes earlier, a streaking Sam Seyfried cruised down the right side of the Spartan defense, and the threat caused a Southern Lehigh defender to commit a foul that yielded a Tiger penalty kick. Jonathan Blaine dutifully stepped up and pounded home the game’s first goal.

“Sam’s play tonight was great,” said Northwestern head coach Nate Hunsicker, who earned his 100th career win Tuesday. “His speed was killing them early on and he set up both free kicks for us. He was just too fast for them and he was killing them on the flanks.”

Seyfried added the Tigers final goal with just five seconds left on the clock.

Northwestern beat the Spartans 4-1 in a regular season meeting on September 16, and the two teams managed to battle pretty evenly throughout the majority of Tuesday’s contest.

“From both sides, (Southern Lehigh) had a really good game plan and executed it really well tonight,” Hunsicker said. “They kept us off the ball and off the scoreboard at least for a little while. Once we finally cracked them, we were able to beat them with some speed on the outside. But overall, it was a really well-played game on both sides of the ball.”

Northwestern out-shot the Spartans 13-3l, while also nabbing four corners to the Southern Lehigh’s zero. Tiger goalkeeper Kyle Bellhorn picked up another shutout. Spartan keeper Isaac Santiago tallied 10 saves in the loss.

The Tigers (20-0-1) feel like they’re peaking at just the right time of the season and team chemistry has a lot to do with it.

“The team unification is just really good right now,” said Blaine. “We’re honestly best friends on and off the field and I know where my teammates are going to be, even before they make their runs to get there. It really helps to have that bond and that sense off the ball.”

The Tigers meet Central Catholic Thursday at Emmaus at 7 p.m. The Vikings beat No. 2 Blue Mountain in Tuesday’s other semifinal.

“We need to bring our A game,” Hunsicker said. “They’ll be a tough opponent for us, but I think we match up well against them. We do a lot of the same things really well, so it should be a slug fest.”

“At this point of the season,” said Blaine, “With the situation being ‘survive and advance,’ we just need to play tough, play our brand of soccer, be gritty, talk a lot, and get the job done,.”

Hunsicker’s 100th win comes in his sixth year at the helm. He’s led the team to three league titles and two district titles in three appearances in the district championship game.

Immediately following Tuesday’s victory, Northwestern senior players hoisted two water coolers filled with icy fluids and celebrated by soaking their head coach.

Coach Hunsicker was quick to praise the efforts of senior defender Josh Bryan, as his efforts were quite integral in the Tigers’ success. “Our right back, Josh, played just so well for us tonight,” he said. “He played such a great game for us, start to finish.”