When one wins a lot of championships, it’s easy to lose count.

The Northwestern Lehigh soccer players reminded head coach Nate Hunsicker that their victory in Saturday’s Colonial League championship wasn’t their first set of gold medals this season.

The players count summer league titles.

Saturday at Catasauqua’s Alumni Field, the team collected their second set of gold medals when they defeated Southern Lehigh 4-0 in a physical match between two top teams that saw elbows fly and jerseys get pulled.

The league title is the sixth in the last seven seasons for the Tigers.

“They reminded me about winning the summer league,” said coach Nate Hunsicker. “These guys are really driven and want wins every time they go out there, whether it’s a summer league situation or states, they want to win no matter the situation.”

The two rivals went at each other for over 20 minutes with neither team being able to change the scoreboard. Finally, Cole Mertz sent a crossing pass and found Caelan Stangil shot for the game’s first goal.

“We’re just so familiar with each other that we almost instinctively know where we’re going to be,” said Stangil, who scored his 32nd goal of the season. “Cole is great at getting the ball to other players and he couldn’t have sent a better pass to me.”

Midway through the half, Logan Mesics scored on a penalty shot to give his team a little breathing room.

Mertz, Stangil, and Mesics have carried the Northwestern offense this season and Saturday was no exception. With Stangil and Mesics getting into the scoring column, you knew it wouldn’t be long before one of them would find Mertz open for a shot. The junior forward beat Ismael Magallenes for the third goal of the game and put Northwestern up 3-0.

“We came in knowing it was going to be a physical game because it always is with these guys,” said Mertz, who has 37 goals this season. “We were ready for it. We just have to keep our heads in those situations and not let the style of play affect what we need to do.”

As the clock started to wind down, Egan Boyle was left open and threw another score up on the board for the Tigers when he scored his second goal of the year.

“It felt great to get one in a game like this,” Boyle said. “I was in a good spot and when the ball came in, it was right where I wanted it to be and I was able to get the goal. It was just one of those opportunities and I’m glad I was able to take advantage of it.”

NWL blanks Pirates in semifinal

In the Colonial League semifinal game at Catasauqua’s Alumni field last week the Tigers got some help from Palisades when the Pirates put the ball in their own goal. At the time, it gave the Tigers a 3-0 lead and Northwestern added a couple more goals for a 5-0 win over the Pirates to advance to the league finals.

The Tigers and Pirates met in the summer league championship which was won by Northwestern and followed that with a contentious regular season meeting won by Northwestern.

Palisades had one spurt of opportunities midway through the first half but was unable to connect on any shots.

Tiger goalie Dean Carl and the Tiger defense kept everything out of the net.

“They like to play the ball long and that gave us a bit of a problem for a while, but we stepped it up,” said senior defender Austin Bittenbender. “Our communication has been really important for our success. We’ve also played together a lot, so we have gotten used to each other and that helps make it easier.”

“I loved how our defense looked tonight,” said Hunsicker. “We were aggressive. We were sound on the ball. We had a couple of missteps where we came out and may have been a little too aggressive. We always preach pressure coverage in the back and the intensity there was phenomenal. The back-to-back shutouts speak for themselves as to how well our defense played.”

Fifteen minutes into the first half Stangil connected with Mertz, who headed a ball past goalie Mason Bauer for a 1-0 lead. Stangil added a goal to the mix when Mertz played a corner kick into Mesics, who found Stangil in front of the net for a 2-0 advantage.

Mesics went from assisting to scoring when Lyle Good got the ball to him to make it 4-0 at halftime.

With 6:29 left in the game, frustration got to Palisades and Stangil was pulled down in the box and awarded a penalty kick. Faking Bauer out to dive to his right, Stangil buried his shot to Bauer’s left for the 5-0 lead.

“The ball was kind of bouncing around in a weird way and I got a touch on it and the goalie just took me down,” said Stangil. “Right before the kick, I just look at the goalie and think where he’s going to go and just try to slide the shot the other way.”