Senior Josh Zellner and junior Matt Johnson dominate the scoring column for the Northwestern Lehigh boys soccer team with a combined 64 goals and 33 assists.
The duo produced at least one goal in 19 of the 22 games the Tigers have played this season but had a two-game dry streak coming into Tuesday night’s semifinals after Zellner battled an illness and was not playing at full throttle and Johnson was heavily marked by opponents.
That ended Tuesday night at Northern Lehigh’s Bulldog Stadium when Johnson exploded for a hat trick and Zellner duped Nativity BVM goalie Nolan Kokitus in the Tigers 5-0 win in the district semifinals.
“Josh was pretty sick during league playoffs,” said Northwestern head coach Nate Hunsicker. “But he battled through it and gave us everything he had and then didn’t get on the scoresheet in the quarterfinals, so it was nice to get him going. Hopefully, that will propel him in the championship game and for a little run in the state playoffs.
“Matt was awesome tonight. His pace gave them fits on the outside, and on the inside. We looked at one tape of them from earlier this year and we knew we could expose their lack of speed on the back line, especially with Matty’s speed up top.”
Northwestern will play the Allentown Central Catholic Vikings (14-7-0), who downed Blue Mountain 2-1 in overtime to win the other semifinal game. The district finals will be played Thursday night at Emmaus as part of a doubleheader with the Northwestern Lehigh girls meeting the defending state champion Vikettes in the other game.
Northwestern (21-1-0) could not have had a much faster start to the game against Nativity (18-3-0). Just three minutes into the game, Johnson’s speed paid off and he worked into an open spot and blasted a shot into the top right corner of the goal for a quick 1-0 lead.
“We were all hyped after that one,” said Johnson. “I came to play tonight, and I know all the other boys did, too.”
Kokitus continued to face heavy pressure but was able to respond and keep the game scoreless going into halftime after Northwestern outshot the Hilltoppers 9-2.
“We were putting a lot of shots point blank at the keeper, so we switched some things tactically and that helped us in the second half,” Hunsicker explained.
The second-half start was just slightly slower than what Northwestern did to open the game when it took Johnson and the Tigers an extra 23 seconds to get goal number two. With 36:37 left in regulation, Johnson took a pass from Jake Van Lierop, made a quick spin move around a defender and made it 2-0 as Kokitus appeared a little flat-footed on the shot and was unable to make a play.
Nativity mounted slightly more pressure and on what would be their best look of the night, goalkeeper Damian Krapf went high into the air to tip a shot over the crossbar. As Nativity looked to pressure Krapf, most of the attempts failed to get past the back line of Northwestern’s defense.
Late in the game, Nativity players seemed worn out from Northwestern’s speed, and the Tigers took advantage for three goals in 13 minutes. Johnson buried his third goal of the night into the front left corner of the net and Zellner took advantage of Kokitus attempting to come out and make a play to put a shot over the goalie and into a wide-open net. Cayden Fitch got into the scoring column when he headed a shot past Kokitus to make it 5-0.
“Fitch played a great ball over the top to me, and I was able to get one-on-one with the goalie. I got my head up, saw him come out, put it over him and put it away,” said Zellner of his goal. “The past couple games I have been so close, and I hit the crossbar a couple times in the postseason, so it felt good to get that one.”
The Tigers reached the semis after downing Pine Grove 3-0 in the quarterfinals at Tiger Stadium. The game was a physical match, but the physical play did nothing to deflate the Northwestern Lehigh offense. Jack Mauro got the scoring started and Dart Delillo and Jake Van Lierop both added insurance goals in the win.