Your team wins the Colonial League championship, the District 11 championship, and wins its second PIAA championship in three seasons. Oh, and you do it all without losing a game.

So, what do you do for an encore?

If you’re head coach Nate Hunsicker and the Northwestern Lehigh boys soccer team, you do it again.

That was the goal of the 2025 version of the team as it prepared for the opening of the season.

With the remaining talent that the Tigers have, it’s not out of the realm of possibility for it to happen again, although it is a tall task.

“Obviously, last year was special and sharing that success with two other teams from the school added to just how special of a fall season it ended up being,” said Hunsicker. “Now we’re focused on the upcoming season. We’ve got some new faces in new places and some guys back in their old stomping grounds, so we’re looking forward to it and we think we can make another really special run.”

The first part of the plan is figuring out how you replace the 74 goals lost by the graduation of Jacob Van Lierop. The talented group of players who were there to help Van Lierop reach that mark was whittled down by graduation as well as the Tigers said goodbye to 10 seniors.

The good news is that there are still core players from last year’s team remaining and the program seems to simply mix in new faces where needed to continue their success.

The senior duo of Caelen Stangil (15 goals, 21 assists) and Logan Mesics (20 goals, 18 assists) give the midfield a familiar look and experience that will help the growth of freshman Lyle Good, who joins the group this season.

“With my height I can manage a lot of the aerial stuff,” said Mesics. “And he (Stangil) is the guy who is running around all over the place and making tackles left and right. Between the two of us we’re able to do a decent job out there because we compliment each other’s style of play.”

Junior Cole Mertz (23 goals, 16 assists) has disruptive speed at the forward spot and another freshman, James Bissell will see a lot of time on the field for Northwestern this season.

Defensively, Northwestern returns two of their starting backs this season and the experience will help junior Dean Carl who takes over in goal for the first time as a varsity starter.

Carl allowed four goals in 11 games last season for a 1.78 goals-against average as he learned under Brandon Krapf, who led the team to 18 shutouts and allowed only 10 goals.

“Dean is ready to go,” said Hunsicker. “He’s had the last couple of seasons to learn under Brandon. He was our starting keeper all summer and did a good job.”

Moravian Academy, Southern Lehigh, and Palisades come into the season as the projected teams to beat with Notre Dame of Green Pond potentially working their way into the top tier.

In each of the past two seasons, the team has had someone break the previous career goals scored record. Matt Johnson moved the record from 81 career goals to 101 in 2023 and Van Lierop pushed it to 105 in 2024.

Before last season, Van Lierop and Mesics were part of a group talking about Johnson’s record and knew it would take a huge season for anyone to top Johnson.

Then came Van Lierop’s historic 74 goal season to make him the all-time goals leader.

Mesics comes in with 38 career goals meaning that he would need 67 goals this season for him to top his former teammate’s mark.

“I would have to have a very similar season to what (Van Lierop) did last year and that’s pretty difficult,” said Mesics with a laugh. “I don’t know about that happening.”