HS Football: NW Lehigh fends off Blue Mountain’s upset bid
Blue Mountain's Chase Guers (13) breaks up a pass intended for Northwestern Lehigh's Michael Lagowy during Friday's game (Photo by Brook Koch-Guers).
NEW TRIPOLI — Every week, Northwestern Lehigh knows it’s going to get an opponent’s best effort.
Friday night, that best effort nearly resulted in a Tiger loss.
Blue Mountain went toe-to-toe with the defending PIAA Class 3A state champions, but a key turnover and an impressive drive late allowed Northwestern Lehigh to escape with a 34-28 victory in a Schuylkill-Colonial Red Division contest.
“We have a big target on our back and everybody’s going to give us their hardest,” Tigers senior Mason Bollinger said. “We’re not invincible and we have to learn to keep our heads up when (things aren’t going our way).
“They play us hard every year, so we knew it was going to be tough. But we had a lot of self-inflicted wounds and we had to learn to recover from those and just play more team ball. We had to play four quarters, but we’re happy with the win.”
With the Tigers (4-0, 2-0 Red) clinging to a six-point advantage in the fourth quarter, Bollinger got off a huge 57-yard punt that prevented the Eagles from gaining good field possession. Still, Blue Mountain managed to move the ball and worked its way to the Northwestern 32 in hopes of getting a go-ahead score.
But a fumble — the game’s only turnover — gave the Tigers the ball back with 7:18 to play. The Eagles would never touch the ball again.
Bollinger snared a 15-yard catch on third-and-10 despite the ball being tipped to keep the drive alive and then reeled off an 18-yard gain on a direct snap to move the chains again. Later in the march, Chase Sukanick converted a fourth-and-3 with a 10-yard pickup that helped run out the clock.
“They converted on big downs and that’s what you have to do in that situation. They did and we didn’t,” Blue Mountain coach Chuck Kutz said. “Certainly a team that is of that caliber you can’t give up big plays and we did that whether it was the punt blocked, whether it was giving up some deep touchdowns or a fumble late when you’re in their territory and it’s four-down territory. It comes back to bite you, and it did that.”
While Kutz was disappointed in the plays that didn’t go his team’s way, the Eagles (1-3, 1-2) definitely had ones that did. And that nearly allowed Blue Mountain to pull off the upset.
After Northwestern opened the game with a 64-yard scoring drive that ended with Brady Zimmerman’s 1-yard TD run, the Eagles tied the score when Chase Guers fielded a punt and raced 79 yards to the end zone.
The Tigers regained a 14-7 lead early in the second when Shane Leh hit Bollinger with a 26-yard scoring pass. That advantage was short-lived as Blue Mountain quickly knotted the score on a 66-yard strike from Cohen Kirby to Kole Luckenbill.
The back-and-forth continued as the two teams traded scores again on their next possessions. Zimmerman took a toss from Leh and got free for a 75-yard tally, but the Eagles answered. A 50-yard kickoff return by Sonny Amato gave his team great field position and they capitalized with a 7-yard TD run by Reese Miller.
Northwestern managed to take a lead to the locker room when Michael Lagowy blocked a punt deep in Blue Mountain territory right before halftime. Shane Hulmes powered into the end zone from the 1-yard with 15 seconds showing on the clock to make it 28-21.
The second half started like the first one ended as the teams exchanged scores one more time. Braxton Lakatosh broke loose for a 67-yard touchdown run before Kirby directed an impressive 59-yard drive that concluded with a 9-yard TD pass to Frankie Russo.
After that, though, the offensive explosions ended and the defenses took over. Neither team scored the rest of the way.
“In the first half it was a marathon, and in the second — after the first two scores — the defenses both settled in and make some nice stops,” Northwestern Lehigh coach Josh Snyder said. “It was a tale of two halves that way. But our kids were gritty.
“I was really impressed by getting that last stop. We got the ball back … and sort of went into our double tight set and we were able to grind off minutes off the clock. That was impressive. And that shows what type of football team we can be.
“The most important thing I told them was we’re not invincible … We can’t take anything for granted. I told the kids never be upset or down about a win. Some teams would die for a win.”
STATS … Leh threw for 246 yards, with 231 coming in the first half. His only completion of the second was the important 15-yarder to Bollinger during the last drive. Lakatosh added 152 rushing yards on 15 carries. For the Eagles, Kirby hit on seven passes for 116 yards.
SOLID EFFORT … Blue Mountain definitely gave Northwestern all it could handle. “I was proud of our effort tonight,” Kutz said. “I think we slugged it out. I think people realize we can slug it out with anybody. And we just have to keep working and keep getting better.”
