After completing the sixth season in the program’s history, Northwestern Lehigh’s girls lacrosse team reached a milestone when it won its first district playoff game.

The win came Monday night at Emmaus High School’s Memorial Field when the Lady Tigers beat Allentown Central Catholic 10-8 to advance to the District 11 2A championship.

All it took was a strong team effort with sophomores coming up big on both offense and defense.

Offensively, Olivia Fagan made her presence known almost from the opening draw.

Fagan put pressure on goalie Trizzah Savagaji and scored five goals, including the final three goals for Northwestern.

On defense, sophomore goalie Ashley Yacynych had an impressive game to shut down the Central Catholic offense that had come alive in the third quarter.

The Tigers jumped to an early lead as Fagan scored on a free position shot and then dealt with a defender who was right on her to put a shot over the defender’s stick for a 2-0 lead.

Northwestern got the next two goals with Sydney Wright bouncing one off the bottom of the crossbar and Ella Collins opening the second quarter with a goal off a free position shot. For the rest of the quarter, the teams traded goals with Cara Thomas and Olivia Costa putting the ball in the net for Northwestern, who held a 6-2 advantage going into halftime.

Halftime was a time for adjustments for Central Catholic as the Vikettes’ defense closed holes that the Tigers were exploiting earlier in the game. They also brought on freshman Jackie Mcewen to replace senior Addison Gloss, who had left the game with an injury late in the second quarter.

Mcewen and Sara Filipovits both scored a pair of goals as Central Catholic put together five goals in the first 10 minutes of the third quarter. The second goal from Mcewen tied the game and the second from Filipovits gave Central a 7-6 lead.

“You just have to have goldfish memory and when one goal goes in, you just forget it and come back for the next play,” said Yacynych. “I just started really cheering on my team and they made some really great plays to come back and win the game I love my defense.

“They’re my family and I really loved the way they played tonight. I just trusted that they would come back for us.”

Feeling her team was reeling a little, Northwestern head coach Pam Colistra called a time-out, which was just what the players needed.

“In that time-out,” Colistra said, “We really just asked ourselves ‘what do we want out of this?’ We hit the reset button, and it turned out that the time-out was pivotal because you could see a change in the girls. Olivia Fagan took over leadership of the offense, we slowed it down, we had patience, and we possessed the ball and put it into the back of the net when we needed to.”

Coming out of the time-out with 1:42 left in the third quarter, the Tigers switched to Fagan taking the draws and she was able to win four straight against Central Catholic’s Abbie Aemisegeo as Northwestern strung together four unanswered goals of their own before the end of the quarter.

Costa took a perfect lead pass from Thomas for the first of the goals and Fagan scored the next three in a span of just :49.

The first of those goals came when Fagan was off balance after taking a hit from a defender that would have resulted in a foul, but the sophomore got a shot off and put it past Savagaji as Northwestern regained the lead at 8-7.

“A lot of it was definitely momentum,” said Fagan. “When they put the ball on the stick, I just knew I had to go at it hard. When we were up it felt amazing but when they tied the game, we put our heads down a little. We wanted this more than ever because this was our first time (winning in districts) and it’s just amazing.

“Olivia Costa, my friend, was right next to me and cheering me on. I couldn’t have done it without this team and the coaches supporting me.”

Fagan finished with five goals while Costa had two for Northwestern.

While the third quarter saw a total of nine goals scored, the final 12:00 saw just one goal scored. With 5:32 left in regulation Central Catholic senior Kate Raymond got her third goal of the game to make it 10-8.

Northwestern’s defense struggled coming out of halftime, but they were able to contain the Central Catholic attack early in the game and then late in the game after the Tigers had regained the lead.

Haley Kerschner and Olivia Spatz kept Raymond, who leads the Vikettes in goals this season, in control for most of the game with tight coverage. That combined with Yacynych’s play in goal allowed the defense to bend but not break.

Northwestern will have to beat Southern Lehigh, the top seed in the 2A classification, to win its first district championship.

The Spartans have had the better of the two meetings with the Tigers, winning 18-3 in the first regular season meeting and then taking a 16-6 decision 11 days ago. Southern Lehigh defeated Saucon Valley 13-7 in the other semifinal game at Emmaus and has won four straight 2A championships in District 11.