It’s about an hour and 15 minute drive one-way between Northwestern Lehigh and Central Columbia high schools.

Even with that distance, the girls soccer programs at the two schools have become very familiar with each other.

What started as a rivalry in states now includes a regular season meeting, which serves as a barometer for what the teams need to do better in the postseason.

The teams met on Saturday at Tiger Stadium and although both have several options for scoring, it came down to a battle between Sophia Schaffer and Central Columbia’s Quinlan Blake, who both picked up hat tricks in a 3-3 tie.

Both players showed off their skills throughout the game with Blake taking the first turn in the spotlight.

The junior forward scored the first goal of the game when she battled past a pair of defenders and used her left foot to get a shot past goalie Brystol Hamm for a 1-0 lead near the midway point of the opening quarter.

Northwestern had some opportunities but was turned away either by the Blue Jays’ defense or by goalie Braelan Moran.

On one attack, Moran went to the ground to make a save that rebounded off of her and went directly to Schaffer, who had room in front of her and scored with 7:09 left in the half to tie the game.

Schaffer started the scoring in the second half.

With 31:02 left, Schaffer was awarded a direct kick from 26-yards out that was stopped and cleared by the Central Columbia defense. Eventually, Schaffer shook the two defenders who were ever-present around her and put another shot on goal that went off of the post.

Her teammates were able to find Schaffer again and she put a shot past Moran that gave the Tigers their first lead in the game with 30:06 left to play.

Blake also dealt with multiple players surrounding her, but with 24:59 left, Blake again shifted the spotlight back her way when she put a shot on goal that appeared to glance off of a defender and into the net to again tie the game.

Just under a minute later, Blake was able to get some space and breakaway toward the goal to put a shot just out of the reach of Hamm as the Jays regained the lead at 3-2.

One of the teammates who does a good job of finding Schaffer is junior Juliet Snyder.

Snyder got a ball to Schaffer for the game-tying goal with 18:25 left to play. That goal gave Schaffer 150 career goals.

Schaffer is known for being a team player and her biggest goals are for the team to make a run back to playing for a state championship. She does have one other personal goal that she wouldn’t mind reaching along the way, the District 11 record of 166 career goals is within reach for Schaffer, especially if the team does go deep into the postseason.

“Now that I’m this close,” she said. “I would like to get that record, but the only way I can get it is if we keep winning in the postseason, and that’s what I really want. I want us to be able to experience playing for the gold in states.”

Tiger head coach Jordan Smith found out one key thing about his team in Saturday’s contest.

“I’ve seen a side of the girls that I have never seen before with how resilient they played,” said Smith. “The first 20 minutes we didn’t quite have it like they did and they were playing more physical and winning 50-50 balls. When we went down 1-0, we didn’t get down on ourselves, we didn’t yell at each other or hang our heads.

“Instead, a light bulb went on and we started playing the way that I know we can and when we gave up the two goals in the second half, the same thing happened and we just fought back and tied it. We showed a lot of resiliency today in a big game.”

Northwestern had a pair of shutouts with an 8-0 win against Wilson and a 12-0 win against Northern Lehigh. In those two games, Schaffer led the team with six assists and six goals. Kaylynn Knauss had five goals, and Amelia Glassberg had four.

Northwestern finishes the regular season with a game at Catasauqua this week before beginning the Colonial League playoffs on Monday. A win over the Rough Riders will clinch the top seed for the Tigers in the league playoffs.