In many sports, teams from the Philadelphia area have given Lehigh Valley teams fits in the PIAA playoffs over the years.

It was thought that the Blue Dragons from Julia R. Masterman High School might do the same against Northwestern Lehigh.

Instead, it was the Tigers who were the ones making things difficult for the Philadelphia boys.

Northwestern advanced to the Class 2A state quarterfinals with a 4-0 win over Masterman Tuesday night at Tiger Stadium.

The two teams spent nearly 32 minutes battling back and forth, with neither team able to pick up a decided advantage.

With 8:15 left in the first half, the Tigers quickly changed things when Matt Johnson spun around to make a blind shot on goal, which blasted off the right post and back to Johnson, who fed teammate Josh Zellner. The senior took the pass and beat goalkeeper Nery Tlapaya for the opening goal of the game, which held up for the rest of the half to give the Tigers a 1-0 edge at the break.

“We played really well, but Masterman gave us a big punch in the mouth in the first five or 10 minutes,” said coach Nate Hunsicker. “They came out with a lot of energy and played a 4-3-3 and really got after it, with high pressing.

“That was part of their demise, though, because they got gassed and 15 or 20 minutes in, they were chasing us. We anticipated them having another punch like that to start the second half, and it just never came.”

The second half opened with Jack Mauro putting a shot off the crossbar. When the ball caromed back into play, Johnson turned the rebound into a shot, but put it just wide of the net. Shortly after Johnson’s shot, the Dragons looked to tie the game when Victor Nordloff headed a corner kick, only to have Northwestern goalkeeper Damian Krapf pull in the shot to thwart Masterman.

Johnson was again in the middle of the Northwestern offense when he beat two defenders and played the ball to Zellner. Instead of looking to beat another defender, Zellner found a wide-open Jake Van Lierop, who went one-on-one with Tlapaya and beat him for a 2-0 lead.

Frustration got the better of Masterman and Kai Rosser was given his second yellow card of the game, ending his night. Dragons coach Nichole Geiger was then given a yellow card for arguing the ejection.

When play resumed, Northwestern went right back on the attack, and senior Cayden Fitch fired a laser from the top of the box to beat Tlapaya.

“The ball was already on my left and the defender thought I was going to shoot it, so I crossed it over and hit it with my right because I saw the goalie wasn’t on the near post,” said Fitch of his goal that put the Tiges up 3-0. “We just keep coming out every night with a lot of energy, and work hard from back to front and keep a lot of pressure on the ball and force mistakes.”

After hitting the crossbar earlier, Mauro found an easier shot while amidst a group of players in front of the net and tapped it in for the games’ final score.

TIGERS EVERYWHERE ... The Northwestern Tigers will match up with the Fleetwood Tigers Saturday in the quarterfinal round. The location and time have not been determined. Fleetwood (20-0-1) downed Danville (16-6) in the opening round.

WHO KNEW? ... Moravian Academy was the only common opponent between Northwestern and Fleetwood. As it turns out, a few Northwestern players were at that game long before they knew Fleetwood might be a quarterfinal opponent for the team. Hunsicker is hopeful of coming up with video from that game, and it’s likely that Fleetwood will look for copies of the game played between Northwestern and Moravian Academy.