The Northwestern Lehigh girls soccer team won the District 11 2A championship last week, but unfortunately won’t get a home game for the first round of the PIAA playoffs.

The Tigers have to travel to Wilkes-Barre Area High School to play the District 2 champion Holy Redeemer Royals, who are 19-2 this season and went a perfect 12-0 in the Wyoming Valley 2 Conference.

Northwestern (21-1-0) also went through the Colonial League schedule with a perfect 12-0 mark, and swept its way through the league playoffs. Its only blemish came on the road when it played at Parkland (22-0-1) during the regular season.

The Royals combine a strong offense with a defense that allowed just under one goal per game, outscoring their opponents 117-16. Junior goalkeeper Amira Pirrone started every game this season, playing all but five minutes.

Offensively, Northwestern has to find a way to contain junior Avery Kozerski (29 goals/14 assists) and senior Bella Granteed (27 goals/11 assists).

Heading into states, the Tigers will face teams they know little about and getting information on them will be tougher than on local teams.

However, Northwestern and Holy Redeemer met in the first round of states last season and the Tigers beat the Royals 2-1 at Tigers Stadium.

Northwestern head coach Jordan Smith and his team will have some familiarity from that previous meeting, but in general he doesn’t put too much emphasis on finding out a lot of information about teams - preferring instead to know just enough to know what to look for.

More important to him is making sure his team is ready to go physically and mentally.

“We make sure that we’re prepared. We don’t necessarily worry about other teams. We make sure we’re healthy, we’re mentally tough and we’re ready to go,” said Smith. “We find out who we play, learn a little about them, but at the end of the day we just want to play our game and make sure we’re ready.”

The Tigers are coming off their third straight district championship, so most of the players know what to expect and are ready for the next challenge, but the team also has freshmen starters who are going through their first postseason and are important pieces to the puzzle.

Between the coaching they have gotten this season, the help of senior leaders and the development that those players have shown, Smith has no concerns.

“The season is where you work through those nerves,” said Smith. “And they’ve proven time and time again that there’s no moment too big for them. They’ve been doing a great job.”

One player who lives for big games is junior Brook Balliet.

Balliet scored the only goal in the win over Central Catholic in the district finals. In last year’s finals, she had two goals in a 3-2 win, and the year before she also scored the lone goal in a 1-0 Northwestern win in the district finals.

“Honestly, I think it’s adrenaline. I think I can perform well under pressure, but I think my team also does a good job finding me on the field,” said Balliet. “I think I’m just in the right position for these games, which I’m fortunate for, but my team does a really good job setting me up.”

Goalie Olivia Rinehart and the Northwestern defense have the ability to completely shut down teams. Rinehart has 16 shutouts this season - including six straight with the last four coming in the postseason. Overall, Northwestern has outscored its opponents 104-8, including outscoring playoff opponents 17-0.

In addition to going to their third straight PIAA tournament, the Tigers have been there in four of the last five tournaments. In each of those seasons they have won their first-round game, but fell in close games in the quarterfinals, including losing to Radnor 2-1 in double overtime in 2021.

In their other two quarterfinal games, they fell to Wyomissing and Lake Lehman by identical 1-0 scores in the quarterfinal round.