The Northwestern Lehigh field hockey had three games last week and came away dominating all three games by outscoring its opponents 23-0.

Four of the Lady Tigers’ five wins have been by shutouts this season with the defense allowing just one goal in the other win.

The most impressive win of the week came against Palisades (2-3 Colonial, 3-3 overall) as Northwestern picked up a 7-0 win with Hannah Gober getting a hat trick to lead the offense.

The game opened with neither team being able to get much momentum. By halftime the score was 1-0 in favor of Northwestern as Gober notched her first goal with just under two minutes left to play in the first quarter.

The defenses went to battle in the second quarter with each holding their opponents scoreless.

Tiger head coach Lissa Opolsky didn’t take credit for any great words of wisdom at halftime that turned her team around in the second half.

“Nothing that you could put in the paper,” said Opolsky of her halftime speech to her team.

Whatever the message was, it worked.

With 10:31 left in the third quarter, McKensey Miller scored her first goal and then followed that up with number two just about five minutes after that to make it 3-0 Northwestern. Gober assisted on both of those goals and then put her second goal of the night on the board with just 2:15 left in the quarter, off an assist by Evelyn Alboucq.

Miller has found herself getting more playing time in her senior season than she had in previous years.

“Getting a little more consistent time after not really playing much until this point has helped me work better with my teammates and that’s paying off,” said Miller. “I’m definitely adjusting, and I think my teammates are adjusting to me as well. Just working together and working hard at practice has helped us.”

Before the midway point of the final quarter, Alboucq fired from about eight yards out and put the ball through a group of players, screening goalie Ava Cron, who was charged with all seven goals in the game.

Two of Gober’s goals came off corner plays for Northwestern who had nine corner opportunities in the game.

“They had to figure out that less is more sometimes,” said Opolsky. “Taking too many touches on the ball is going to not be helpful in most situations. We tried to touch the ball a little bit less with a little bit more passing options in the second half. Overall, just getting used to a different team in a different year with different personalities and finding that tenaciousness and relentlessness is a little bit more difficult this year for us.”

The less is more approach showed perfectly on Gober’s last goal when she played a through ball that came up the field and gave her a breakaway toward the goal.

Northwestern has a pair of games this week as they host Saucon Valley (2-3, 2-4) and then play at Southern Lehigh (3-0, 3-1) on Friday afternoon.