There was a brief display of anger by Northwestern Lehigh head coach Josh Snyder and assistant Dave Kerschner after the last play in the first half of Friday night’s District 11 Class 3A semifinal against North Schuylkill.
There was a brief time of anger expressed in the home locker room at halftime.
There was a brief time early in the third quarter when the Spartans were in position to score a third consecutive touchdown after falling in a 28-point hole.
But the Tigers regrouped, refocused and dominated much of the second half of what became a 49-21 rout.
“We’re a pretty good football team that can overcome a lot of adversity,” Snyder said. “That was probably one of the weirdest first halves of football I’ve been a part of. You go up 28-0, they have a big play, wacky football. The calls didn’t go in our favor. We had something to do with some of those.
“But what I liked the most was the resiliency. We were pretty business-like at halftime. It was a physical football game. I was concerned with that being in an eight-team bracket as the No. 2 seed going up against these guys knowing what type of game it was the first time we played them. It was.”
Michael Lagowy’s interception stopped North Schuylkill’s first drive of the third quarter when it trailed only 28-14.
After that, Northwestern Lehigh scored the next three times it had to ball to re-establish the rout.
Senior Shane Leh threw for three touchdowns and for 96 yards and another score to lead the Tigers, who never punted. Fellow senior Braxton Lakatosh reached 1,000 yards in his first year as a starter with 102 yards and a score.
“I went into the season that if I have any goal for myself it is to win a district championship and get 1,000 yards,” Lakatosh said. “Hopefully, I can get both.”
The Tigers amassed 485 yards of offense, 348 on the ground. Brady Zimmerman and Mason Bollinger added rushing touchdowns and each caught a TD pass. Shane Hulmes also hauled in a 20-yard touchdown pass.
“We were very angry at some of the questionable calls,” Leh said. “Our coaches were pretty fired up. We calmed down, though. We were winning by two scores and getting the ball. We knew we just had to do whatever we had to get back up by three scores, four scores.”
Northwestern Lehigh (12-0) plays Notre Dame-GP (12-0) in next weekend’s District 11 3A final at a site and time to determined. North Schuylkill’s season ends at 8-4.
Northwestern Lehigh dominated the game’s first 17 minutes, scoring all four times it had the ball. Zimmerman had a 15-yard touchdown run for the first score to cap a 13-play, 90-yard drive.
Leh then threw touchdown passes of 20 yards to Hulmes on fourth down and 8 yards to Bollinger and then ran it in from 18 yards out for a 28-0 lead with 4:47 left in the first half.
North Schuylkill then took advantage of three Northwestern Lehigh penalties, including a questionable pass interference call, to get on the board. Spartans quarterback Caden Mengel scored on a 46-yard run after the Tigers’ third penalty.
Northwestern Lehigh got a 44-yard kick return from Lagowy and appeared to get a first down on a Leh run, but the quarterback was called for hurdling. Still, the Tigers got a 13-yard Zimmerman run to the Spartans’ 32. But three pass plays netted minus-5 yards to give it back to North Schuylkill with 1:20 left in the half.
Mengel ran it six times for 39 yards on the ensuing series before he hit Julian Nelson for 21 yards to the Northwestern Lehigh 3-yard line. After spiking the ball with three seconds left, Mengel attempted another run but was stuffed and pushed back for a few seconds before handing it to lineman Aiden Zilker, who lost it. Miller then scooped it up to score on the final play of the half to get the deficit to 28-14.
Snyder was heated after the extra point in a discussion with referee Craig Mosser before heading to the locker room because he was denied a timeout before the last play and what occurred during that play.
Miller had 29 yards on 10 carries before that score. He had 56 yards on 19 carries before running 54 yards for a score against the Tigers backups with 3:53 left. The senior ran for more than 260 yards in the regular-season meeting, a 49-18 Tigers victory.
Leh, who also intercepted a pass, has 1,982 passing yards and 23 touchdowns this season.
NORTHWESTERN LEHIGH 49, NORTH SCHUYLKILL 21
North Schuylkill; 0; 14; 0; 7 — 21
Northwestern Lehigh; 7; 21; 13; 8 — 49
ORDER OF SCORING
First quarter
NWL: Brady Zimmerman 15 run (Chase Sukanick kick), 3:02
Second quarter
NWL: Shane Leh 20 pass to Shane Hulmes (Sukanick kick), 11:04
NWL: Leh 8 pass to Mason Bollinger (Sukanick kick), 6:54
NWL: Leh 18 run (Sukanick kick), 4:47
NS: Caden Mengel 46 run (Wesley Urban kick), 3:00
NS: Luke Miller 3 run (Urban kick), 0:00
Third quarter
NWL: Leh 72 pass to Zimmerman (Sukanick kick), 5:17
NWL: Bollinger 1 run (kick failed), 0:17
Fourth quarter
NWL: Braxton Lakatosh 1 run (Leh pass to Zimmerman), 4:28
NS: Luke Miller 54 run (Urban kick), 3:53
TEAM STATISTICSNS; NWLFirst downs; 13; 20Rushes-yards; 39-232; 52-348Passing yards; 21; 137Comp-Att-INTs; 1-9-2; 7-12-0Punts-avg.; 3-40.7; 0-0Fumbles-lost; 1-0; 0-0Penalties-yards; 5-35; 9-95
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICSRushing: (North Schuylkill) Luke Miller 20-110, TD; Caden Mengel 19-122, TD; (Northwestern Lehigh) Braxton Lakatosh 17-102, TD; Chase Sukanick 9-59; Brady Zimmerman 7-77, TD; Mason Bollinger 4-17, TD; Shane Hulmes 1-1; Shane Leh 12-96, TD; team 2-(-4).
Passing: (North Schuylkill) Mengel 1-9-2, 21 yards; (Northwestern Lehigh) Leh 6-11-0, 122 yards, 3 TDs; Zimmerman 1-1-0, 15 yards.
Receiving: (North Schuylkill) Julian Nelson 1-21; (Northwestern Lehigh) Zimmerman 1-72, TD; Bollinger 2-23, TD; Hulmes 1-20, TD; Michael Lagowy 2-27; Lakatosh 1-(-5).
