The Northwestern lineup featured several freshmen who produced throughout the regular season.

Now that the postseason is here, those same players are showing that bigger games in pressure situations aren’t going to cause them problems.

Three of those freshman came up big in a 4-0 win over Southern Lehigh in Wednesday night’s Colonial League semifinals at Northern Lehigh High School.

Northwestern put early pressure on the Spartans and earned two early corner opportunities, both of which it converted into goals to give it a fast start.

On the first, it was a pair of freshmen that hooked up when Sophia Schaffer sent a ball directly in front of the goal and goalie Ava Forner was able to block the ball, but it went right to Alexis Kercher, who didn’t miss the opportunity to put her team up early just 1:46 into the game.

“The ball was right there, and I just really ran through it and got it to the back of the goal,” said Kercher of the opening goal.

Just four minutes later, another corner was awarded, and Schaffer again lined up to start the play and again put the ball in a perfect spot. This time, senior Katie Brensinger used her height and headed the ball past Foran to give the Tigers a 2-0 start right out of the gate.

“I just try to get the ball inside to a spot where someone can make a play,” said Schaffer of her two assists. “We work on that a lot in practice, and we did a good job of getting the corners tonight.”

Southern Lehigh regrouped and started to thwart the offensive attack temporarily, but just prior to the halfway mark of the first half, Northwestern mounted a charge up the middle of the field and as it got into the box, whistles blew, and a penalty kick was awarded to the Tigers. Junior Syenna Flores took the kick for Northwestern and pushed it to the right of Foran, who was unable to get to the ball and prevent the Tigers from stretching their lead to 3-0, where it stood at halftime.

The Southern Lehigh defense was able to slow Northwestern’s attack from there, and its offense started to generate more pressure, but was unable to get any open looks at the goal. While the Northwestern defense may have bent, it never broke and allowed just three shots on goal in the game, while Northwestern collected 12.

“They [Southern Lehigh] actually played well defensively. We got the two corners and the penalty kick, but other than those, they played us well,” said Tigers coach Jordan Smith. “We were able to get through for a lot of shots, but they got tougher around the goal, and they put two different goalies out there that did a good job against us.”

With 14:50 left in the game, the freshman class struck again. This time it was Kherington Yezik, off an assist from Cammy Fitch.

“We all came in confident tonight and worked together as a team. We’re playing really well, and the seniors have really helped to make me and the other freshmen feel confident, and helped us to fit in with the team,” said Schaffer.

RELEASE THE LIONS ... Northwestern returns to the league finals on Saturday where it will face Moravian Academy. The Lions came in as the sixth seed, but have knocked off a pair of higher seeded teams to reach the finals with wins over third seed Palisades and second seed Saucon Valley.

SHUTDOWN DEFENSE ... Northwestern has allowed just eight goals all season and has 12 shutouts, including holding its opponent scoreless in seven of its last eight wins.