Spectacular OT goal by Garcia give Tigers title

OREFIELD — When Northwestern Lehigh and Southern Lehigh met during the regular season, the two teams played to a scoreless tie. It came at the end of a stretch where the Tigers scored just three goals in four games, which could have been chalked up to Northwestern being in a scoring slump.

On Saturday evening at Parkland High School, two teams met for the District 11 championship and showed that the low scoring game was more the result of the two teams being evenly matched rather than any scoring slump.

Once again, the two teams played 80-minutes of scoreless soccer, but this time there had to be a winner. In the ninth minute of overtime, Jeff Garcia used a spectacular bicycle kick to give Northwestern a 1-0 win, a District 11 Class 3A championship, and a berth in the PIAA State Tournament for the fourth time in the last five seasons.

Garcia, a junior, made the play on a throw-in from Ryan Baker and positioned the ball perfectly to guide it past goalkeeper Jack Cyr for the game-winning goal.

“Brilliant. An amazing finish by Jeff,” said head coach Nate Hunsicker of the play. “He’s been struggling a little bit this year scoring goals and for him to get that tonight, I couldn’t be happier for him.”

After a scoreless regulation, Hunsicker admitted that he sort of threw the playbook away and was looking for some sort of freestyle move from his players to get the win. “We told them ‘Boys, take any chance you have; you never know,’” admitted Hunsicker. “It’s an incredibly difficult shot, but he pulled it off.”

There were a number of points during the game when it appeared one team or the other – usually Northwestern – was poised to get the game’s first goal. Midway through the first half, the Tigers unloaded a flurry of shots, two of which were saved by defenders and one that was blanketed by Cyr. Northwestern came out of the opportunity with a corner kick, which Baker wound up putting on goal, but Cyr was able to tip it over the crossbar. The Tigers also had back-to-back corners just under three-minutes prior to Garcia’s game-winner, one of which was headed toward the goal by Jason Blaine, but wound up going over the crossbar.

In addition to saves from goalkeeper Zach Rosamalia, Colin Coffield came up with a big defensive save when Landon Bealer caught Rosamalia out of position, but Coffield stepped in to make the save.

“It wasn’t our most perfect game, but we were all working hard, and we all wanted it. We all put our best effort into it, and we all worked for it,” Garcia said of his team’s effort.

After playing so much soccer against Southern Lehigh without getting a goal, Baker admitted that the team may have been pressing a little bit. Even though the team was getting frustrated, they didn’t allow it to affect their play and kept battling.

“It was getting a little frustrating that we couldn’t find the back of the net,” said Baker. “But we got the result we wanted, so we’re happy with it now.”

The win sends Northwestern into a first-round state tournament game against Holy Ghost Prep, the second-place team from District 1 that is currently 14-6-0 on the year. The Firebirds lost to Strath Haven in the district championship game.

“Falling a little bit short in the Colonial League playoffs was a little bit of a disappointment, and we had a little bit of a chip on our shoulder,” admitted Hunsicker. “We knew that we were underperforming towards the end of the season, and we came into this tournament with a focus really on regaining that district championship and getting back to the state championship.”

THREE IN A ROW ... The win by the boys soccer team came on the heels of a district championship by the Northwestern girls, who beat Central Catholic just prior to the game against Southern Lehigh. Those wins capped a week that also saw Northwestern take district gold in field hockey, beating Moravian Academy to win the District 11 title.

YOU GUYS AGAIN? ... Northwestern went to the state finals in 2016 and 2017. Each of those seasons ended with silver medals, while Lower Dauphin picked up gold with wins in back-to-back years. Last season, Northwestern didn’t qualify for states, while Lower Dauphin exited in the first round. The two teams are both back this season and are on different ends of the bracket, meaning that they could conceivably meet again for the gold in the final.