The early rounds of districts have teams with their backs against the wall.

For the two teams that reach the finals in some classifications the win-or-go-home situation is gone with both teams being guaranteed spots in the state tournament. This season, the PIAA gave bids to both teams in the 2A District 11 championship, allowing both Northwestern and Palisades to breathe just a little easier.

The game time weather brought a bone-chilling wind blowing across the neighboring cemetery on a cold Halloween night.

Even so, the weather was better than the heavy rains that hit the area a night earlier pushing the game back by a day. The wind was strong enough that it made even a simple free kick an adventure, blowing the ball out of place on the ground many times as the player was approaching to launch the kick. Any ball kicked in the air became anyone’s guess as to just how it was going to react.

One way to avoid the wind was to keep the ball on the ground.

Caelan Stangil did just that when he rolled a pass across the turf and directly into the path of Cole Mertz in front of the net.

When you have a player like Mertz taking a pass like that, you can figure on putting a goal on the board for the Tigers. Mertz didn’t waste the opportunity and buried an easy shot to put Northwestern up 1-0.

As often happens with Northwestern, one goal leads to another. Less than three minutes after Mertz’ soccer training manual goal, the name Westin Killar was announced as Northwestern’s second goal scorer of the night. Killar is a sophomore who has been waiting for the right time to get his first goal; it turns out Friday night was the right time as Killar scored to make it 3-0.

“I think that it hit off of Jack (Bissell) or Caelan (Stangil) and I just sort of side-kicked it into the goal,” said Killar. “It wasn’t the fastest or hardest kicked ball, but it went in.”

“It was awesome,” said coach Nate Hunsicker of Killar’s first goal this season, and just the second of his varsity career. “We were waiting for him to get on the score sheet. He’s been so close, and he does so many things that never show up in the box score, but he works his tail off. It’s nice to see him finally get a little bit of accolades and get one in the back of the net.”

Northwestern used a penalty corner to stake themselves to a 3-0 lead at halftime. Mertz kicked the ball in toward the front of the goal and Logan Mesics outjumped other players to head the ball into the goal.

While a 3-0 deficit against a team like Northwestern can be daunting, but nobody told Palisades because they came out and did something the team had been unable to do in the first 42 minutes of the game that they had not done in over 125 minutes ­— get a goal against Northwestern.

Grayson George was approximately 15 yards out and put a perfect shot on goal that eluded goalie Dean Carl when it sailed over his outstretched arms.

Six minutes later, the Pirates decided to do it again and Blake Oglialoro found himself a little closer to the goal than George was, but fired the same type of shot that again found an open space in the top of the goal.

The Pirates then had 32:17 left to get the game-tying goal or wait until the first round of states to move on. Northwestern’s defense did a better job of marking players, severely limiting the opportunities to tie the game.

Northwestern goalie Dean Carl had just two saves in the game while the Pirates’ Mason Bauer found himself diving all over the front of the goal to make saves and keep his team in the running.

Palisades takes silver medals and will have to go on the road to play their opening round game of the PIAA tournament.

The Tigers will play at home on Tuesday and with Northwestern Lehigh field hockey, girls’ soccer, and boys’ soccer that game could be scheduled as a triple-header to open the state tournament.

Northwestern now has a seven season grip on the gold medals at districts. Since 2022, the medals have come in the 2A classification and from 2019-2021 the wins were as a 3A team. The Tigers now look to defend their second gold medal that they have won in three years.