Southern Lehigh holds off Northwestern
CENTER VALLEY — It was a contrast in styles between Northwestern and Southern Lehigh Friday night, with the Tigers grinding out yardage on the ground for much of the game and Southern Lehigh finding a couple of quick strikes.
In the end, Southern Lehigh wound up downing Northwestern in Colonial League action, 28-21.
Hunter Miller drilled a 47-yard field goal to give Northwestern (3-5) a temporary 3-0 lead in the first quarter before Southern Lehigh started firing up the offense when Logan Edmond hit Eli Price for 58 yards and a touchdown to put the Spartans up 7-3.
The Spartans (7-1) offense twice had one-play drives in the second quarter, with Mike Sisselberger going 80 yards from scrimmage and two drives later, Edmond found Nate Darby down the right side of the field for a 43-yard strike, as Southern Lehigh took a commanding 21-3 lead over the Tigers.
The offensive story for Northwestern was freshman Nick Henry, who took over playing the wildcat role for the Tigers with Phil Dangello nursing a sore ankle. Henry, who missed time earlier in the season with a shoulder injury, has been playing some wildcat offense on the JV squad.
“He’s been tearing things up with the JV team since he’s been healthy, and he has some experience in that role, so we thought we would give him a look and it turned out that he did a really nice job for us,” said coach Josh Snyder. “We think pretty highly of him and it was good to see how well he played tonight in a tough situation.”
Miller missed on a couple of field goal attempts and there was a dropped ball in the end zone in the first half that left Northwestern trailing 21-3 at the break.
The Tigers’ defense shut down the first Southern Lehigh drive of the second half and the offense put together a nearly four-minute drive covering 52 yards, capping it with a Deven Bollinger pass to Ryan Haas followed by Jayden Allen running the ball for the two-point conversion. On their next drive, Northwestern used a short punt by Southern Lehigh to start at the Spartans 48 and four-minutes later, Allen rushed around the left side of the line for a five-yard touchdown run making it 21-18.
“I thought we controlled the tempo of the game pretty well,” said Snyder. “We kind of got on the offensive line pretty hard this week, because averaging just 64 yards rushing per game isn’t what we’re all about, so it was good to get back to Northwestern style of football tonight.”
Southern Lehigh stunted the momentum with another Edmond to Price hook up to go up 28-18, but the Tigers put Miller in position to hit on a 37-yard field goal to make it a one score game at 28-21.
Northwestern’s last drive took them down to the Spartans 16-yard line, where on a fourth-and-12, Bollinger was unable to find an open receiver giving the ball back to Southern Lehigh with just :04 left to play.
GRINDING IT OUT … The addition of what Dangello referred to last week as the “ground and pound offense” has helped Northwestern considerably. Their team total of 161 yards rushing was their highest total of the season, besting the previous mark of 134 yards back in week five against Pen Argyl. Last week, Dangello gained 88 yards on the ground, his highest number of the season. Henry’s 96 yards were the closest Northwestern has come to having a 100-yard rusher this season.
HUNTING FOR A RECORD … Hunter Miller inserted his name into the Northwestern record books with his 47-yard field goal, which is the longest in school history. The previous mark was 45 yards set by Tommy Camano in 1996.
THE SECOND 12 MINUTES … Southern Lehigh has dominated in the second quarter this season. After outscoring Northwestern 14-0 in the second quarter, they upped their domination to a combined score of 114-15 over their opponents in the second stanza.
