With big wins over Bangor (6-2-1 overall, 4-2-0 Colonial) and Saucon Valley (5-3-0, 5-1-0) this past week, the Northwestern girls soccer team pushed its season mark to 9-0-0 overall and 5-0-0 in the Colonial League.

Perhaps the wins were coming a little too easily, because in their 10th game this fall the Lady Tigers came out flat against Southern Lehigh and lost their first game of the season.

“I think the only thing they did tonight was that they outworked us,” said Tiger head coach Kelly Bleam. “They came out working for shots and we didn’t respond and it shows what can happen when you let a team outwork you, no matter what the records are. It might be a good lesson for us.”

Southern Lehigh (6-2-1, 5-0-1) controlled the play and the pace of the game early, keeping pressure on the Northwestern defensive zone from the opening kick. At that point, the defense bent, but didn’t break until Emma Singley got a clear look at the goal and put a shot past goalkeeper Lauren Terrell with just under 29:00 left in the first half.

Singley’s goal would be the only scoring of the half and when the final 40:00 got underway, Southern Lehigh again seemed to have an answer for everything that the Tigers attempted to do on the field.

Singley struck again at just about the same point in the second half that she did in the first half. This time, she fired a laser that came off of goalkeeper Naomi Glassberg and rebounded right back to her. She shifted her aim slightly and was able to catch Glassberg before she could reset herself to give Southern Lehigh a 2-0 lead.

The sudden two-goal deficit seemed to spark Northwestern as the Tigers started to put more pressure on Southern Lehigh’s defense and limit the chances for the Spartans. With 17:38 left to play in the game, Sophia Motolese found an opening and rolled her shot past Faith Cameron to cut the lead to 2-1 with plenty of time for Northwestern to complete a comeback.

“We played better,” said Bleam. “I think they finally got the message that they had to pick up the intensity and had to start working. Over the final 20 minutes or so, we played much better, but we just weren’t able to find the goals that we needed and that’s what happens sometimes when you put yourself in a hole.”

In the final 12 minutes of the game, Northwestern missed on two direct kicks, had two solid shots deflected and saw Cameron make a diving save to her right to stop a game-tying goal.

With the strong start to the season, Northwestern is the first team in District 11 to lock up a spot in districts, but the Spartans were unbeaten in the Colonial League, with just a tie against Notre Dame (Green Pond) blemishing their record. The win over Northwestern gives the Spartans the lead in the Colonial League standings.

“Overall, we’ve definitely played very well this season,” said Bleam. “Tonight wasn’t the norm, because normally, we’re the ones who outwork teams and do all of the little things to win. We’ll come back to practice tomorrow and realize that we let one get away and just go back to work to correct things and we have a game Thursday and I suspect that we’ll play a better game and get things back on course.”

Next up is a tough Moravian Academy team with the same 5-1 Colonial League record as Northwestern, meaning that the Tigers need to come out strong. In fact, the league standings are bunched up with Saucon Valley and Salisbury also having just one league loss on the season. Northwestern was the team that handed the Panthers and Falcons their losses. Northwestern also has Pen Argyl (2-5-0, 0-5-0) and Palisades (3-6-0, 2-3-0) coming up on the schedule.