SCHUYLKILL HAVEN - Every time that Northwestern Lehigh took the field this season, you just had the feeling they were going to win.

And every time they stepped onto a field this season, they did win.

Except for Saturday.

Northwestern’s attempt to repeat last year’s Class 2A state championship came to a halt Saturday at Blue Mountain High School when the Tigers (24-1-0) fell to District 3 runner-up Camp Hill (18-2-2) in the PIAA quarterfinals.

It was one of those days when Northwestern just couldn’t catch a break.

Neither team looked particularly sharp early on, but in the final 10 minutes of the first half, both seemed to have locked in on what they wanted to do and started to play a more competitive game.

The Tigers had a brisk wind to their backs in the first half, and it appeared to cost Isaac Frey a goal. As the ball headed toward the top part of the goal -and goalie Mac Sarff readied to try to jump for the ball, the wind carried it up and over the crossbar.

Minutes later, Tigers goalkeeper Brandon Krapf made an athletic stop on a shot by Miller Nelson of Camp Hill, and the game remained scoreless going into halftime.

Two non-calls went against Northwestern in the second half. The first came when Jake Van Lierop was pulled down in the box, and the second came late in the second half when Matt Johnson was taken to the ground in the box and again there was no call made.

Meanwhile, Camp Hill was able to get a centering pass to Ty Kirchhoff and when Krapf came out to try to cut down the angle, Kirchhoff put a shot on goal that glanced off Krapf and had enough strength to roll into the far corner of the goal before a Northwestern defender could make a save. The goal gave the Lions a 1-0 lead with 26:50 left in the game.

“We had a sloppy turnover in the midfield and were kind of out of shape and sort of chasing the ball,” said Northwestern Lehigh head coach Nate Hunsicker of the play. “Credit to their forward [Kirchhoff] because he made a nice finish, stayed cool, calm, and collected and found the back of the net.”

Nate Kinzel had a late opportunity to tie the game, but Sarff made a leaping grab of the shot to turn away Northwestern.

“We just weren’t connecting in the final third of the field. We had a couple of really good opportunities where we finally broke their backline, and we had kids get tugged down in the box and there was no call on those,” said Hunsicker. “We just started panicking too early and tried to get it all back at once, and we had 20 minutes left at that point and there was plenty of time to get an equalizer and even a game-winner from there.”

The loss snapped a streak of 31 straight wins dating back to last season, and marked the first time that the Tigers had been shut out since Nov. 16, 2021 - a streak of 51 games - when they lost to Bishop Shanahan 2-0 in the PIAA quarterfinal round.

“Their defense didn’t really do anything we didn’t expect against us,” said Hunsicker. “We just weren’t quite where we needed to be today and made a couple mistakes and had some things go against us, and that was the difference.”

WRAP IT UP … Matt Johnson finished his high school career with 101 goals, the all-time mark for Northwestern Lehigh soccer. A total of seven seniors - Johnson, Frey, Mark Boushell, Zach Grim, Nicholas Krum, Caden Mertz, and Tim Zellner - leave holes to fill for next season. “These seniors won a state championship last season, went four-for-four in winning district titles and their tenure brought a lot of success and a lot of fun on and off the field,” said Hunsicker.