North Schuylkill inducted five new members into its Football Hall of Fame during a ceremony at halftime of Friday's game against Southern Lehigh. Participating in the ceremony were, front, Jaden Leiby; back row, from left: Hall of Fame Committee member Randy Lattis, Jesse White, Zachary Chowansky, committee member Bob Moyer, Jake Green, Tyler Elsdon and committee member John Wasilewski (Photo by Leroy Boyer).

FOUNTAIN SPRINGS — North Schuylkill head coach Wally Hall didn’t mince words when asked about his defense’s performance Friday night against Southern Lehigh.

Southern Lehigh pushed the Spartans’ defense up and down the field from start to finish, spoiling North Schuylkill’s Hall of Fame Night with a 34-14 victory in a Schuylkill-Colonial Red Division game at Ghosh Orthodontics Field at Spartan Stadium.

Sean Steckert rushed for 221 yards and three touchdowns on 35 carries as Southern Lehigh scored on its first three possessions en route to its fourth straight victory.

“It’s all about stopping the run,” Hall said. “It’s the most important thing in the game of football. No. 1 thing on defense, stop the run. We might have had two defensive stops the whole night … pathetic.”

Southern Lehigh (4-0, 3-0 Red) set the tone for the evening from the outset as its defense threw Luke Miller for a 4-yard loss on the game’s first play and forced a quick three-and-out.

Steckert then ripped off runs of 11, 13 and 27 yards to reach the end zone, giving Southern Lehigh a 7-0 lead 2:32 into the game.

After another three-and-out by the North Schuylkill offense, Steckert and Southern were back at it, marching 62 yards in eight plays. A 29-yard TD pass from Colton Sams to Otto Young made it 14-0 with 4:20 left in the first quarter.

North Schuylkill came out flat and lacked energy over those first four possessions, which also disappointed Hall. This year’s Hall of Fame class — Tyler Elsdon, Jake Green, Zach Chowansky, Jaden Leiby and Jesse White — delivered a fiery message to the team prior to the game to get them fired up.

It didn’t work.

“When you play a game of football on a Friday night and you have Hall of Famers that came in to talk to your kids, you think they would respond a little bit better and they didn’t,” Hall said.

Southern Lehigh, which is ranked No. 2 in the state in Class 4A by PennLive.com, entered Friday’s game on the heels of a closer-than-expected, 21-20 victory over Lehighton the week before. Head coach Phil Sams said his squad adjusted some things up front to clean up mistakes from the first three games and the changes paid big dividends.

The offensive line of Carter Giberson (6-4, 336), Gabe Bogert (6-0, 232), Lucas Sutyak (6-3, 292), Cody Wesner (6-1, 209) and Dylan Getz (6-2, 247) controlled the line of scrimmage the entire game.

Southern Lehigh finished with 253 yards rushing and 367 yards of total offense. Steckert had eight carries of 10 yards or more and Southern had only one negative play all game.

Southern opened the second quarter with a 16-play, 80-yard scoring drive, then put the game away in the fourth quarter with an 11-play, 57-yard march that took 7:53 off the clock and ended on a 2-yard TD run by Steckert.

“They have a big front at North Schuylkill but we have a bigger and badder front,” Steckert said, his offensive line cheering him on in the background. “Our five guys are amazing. We knew we could run on them. We wanted to punch them in the throats.”

North Schuylkill did some positive things offensively, despite missing leading receiver Landen Smith due to injury.

Luke Miller’s 50-yard TD run and a two-point conversion pass from Caden Mengel to Brody Souchak sliced Southern’s early lead to 14-8 after one quarter. Then a 51-yard bomb from Mengel to Miller on North Schuylkill’s first possession of the third quarter led to Mengel’s 18-yard TD that sliced the deficit to 27-14.

North Schuylkill, however, failed to come away with points on two long drives deep into Southern Lehigh territory, one that stalled at the 6-yard line late in the second quarter and another that reached the 29 late in the third.

“Offensively there were some positives,” Hall said. “But our defense was on the field the whole night. We were always trying to play catch-up offensively.”

Game Summary

Southern Lehigh 34, North Schuylkill 14

SL (4-0, 3-0)               14        7          6          7  —    34

NS (2-2, 1-1)               8          0          6          0  —    14

SL — Steckert 27 run (Tantaros kick)

SL — Young 29 pass from Sams (Tantaros kick)

NS — Miller 50 run (Souchak pass from Mengel)

SL — Steckert 14 run (Tantaros kick)

SL — Roman 46 pass from Sams (pass failed)

NS — Mengel 18 run (pass failed)

SL — Steckert 2 run (Tantaros kick)

Team Statistics

                                 SL          NS

First Downs             19           13

Rushes-Yards           37-253    31-174

Passes                       7-11-0    10-17-0

Passing Yards          114         110

Total Yards              367         284

Fumbles/Lost           1-0          1-0

Penalties                   6-40        3-20

Individual Statistics

RUSHING: Southern Lehigh — Steckert 35-221, Roman 1-23, Sams 1-9. North Schuylkill — Miller 8-90, Mengel 15-68, Ortiz 3-17, Meskunas 2-8, McGinley 1-(-4), Alshefski 2-(-5)

PASSING: Southern Lehigh —- Sams 7-11-0, 114. North Schuylkill —- Mengel 10-17-0, 110.

RECEIVING: Southern Lehigh — Roman 2-58, Young 1-29, Kawczenski 3-23, Steckert 1-4. North Schuylkill — Miller 5-68, Nelson 4-36, Parker 1-6.

INTERCEPTIONS: None.