It lasted for 14 seconds during Thursday night’s annual Mountain Road Rumble rivalry game. Northern Lehigh took advantage of an interception and a short field to score a touchdown for a one-point lead late in the first quarter against visiting Northwestern Lehigh.
Fourteen seconds.
Then, Brady Zimmerman changed the direction of the game for good with a 90-yard kickoff return for a touchdown.
The junior’s first return TD of his life gave the Tigers the lead for good.
Senior teammate Mason Bollinger put an exclamation point on a scintillating first half by returning an interception 100 yards for a score on the last play of the second quarter.
That gave Northwestern a 36-point cushion on its way to a 56-13 victory, its third consecutive rout in the series.
“I was interesting to see how we’d respond [to trailing],” Tigers coach Josh Snyder said. “I was impressed with the cool, calm, collectedness that we had. There was zero panic. People weren’t flustered. People weren’t upset.
“We gained momentum from there. Once we had the momentum, in all three phases we were fairly dominant. We scored points in all three phases.”
Braxton Lakatosh and Chase Sukanick each scored a pair of rushing touchdowns. Bollinger and Shane Hulmes added one each as Northwestern racked up 263 rushing yards in little more than a half.
“We found a play that worked for us,” Snyder added. “We window-dressed it, but it was working and our different combinations of guys running the football was excellent. I thought our guys up front did a nice job clearing holes and protecting the quarterback.”
Northwestern’s counter play continually led to massive gains beginning with Lakatosh’s 68-yard burst to the 1-yard line.
The Tigers also took advantage of an interception by Michael Lagowy and a strip sack and fumble recover by Michael Boring. Both led to touchdowns. Hulmes had two sacks. Fritz Scheirer had two tackles for loss.
“The pick-6 by [Bollinger],” Snyder said, “he had a convoy. It was pretty exciting finish to rivalry game that put it into a mercy-rule game by halftime.”
Northern Lehigh moved the ball and finished off two scoring drives in the first half. After giving up 28 consecutive points in a span of 6 minutes, 20 seconds, the Bulldogs got within 34-13 when Garrett Smoyer threw a perfect, 25-yard touchdown pass on fourth down to Colin Karetsky who went to retrieve the ball with a defender on him.
Six plays later, Northwestern responded with Lakatosh’s 15-yard TD run.
A 49-yard pass from Smoyer to Chase Gall had Northern Lehigh in the red zone again with less 15 seconds left in the first half. But after two incompletions, Bollinger stepped in front of a Smoyer pass at the goal line, picked up a line of blockers and raced down the right sideline for the back-breaking score.
“If we would have scored before halftime,” Bulldogs coach Joe Tout said, “we would have been feeling pretty good. We did some good things in the first half, but the pick-6 was the one that kind of ended it.
“I told [Smoyer] at halftime that that was on me. My gut told me not to do different route combos. But we went with that one. The interception was the one that sealed it.”
Up next
Northwestern hosts Bangor at 7 p.m. on Thursday. Northern Lehigh hosts Pen Argyl at 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 5.
NORTHWESTERN LEHIGH 56, NORTHERN LEHIGH 13
Northwestern: 20; 29; 7; 0 — 56
Northern Lehigh: 7; 6; 0; 0 — 13
ORDER OF SCORING
First quarter
NWL: Mason Bollinger 1 run (kick failed), 8:50
NL: Chris Frame 1 run (Anthony Hanna kick), 3:18
NWL: Brady Zimmerman 90 kick return (Shane Leh to Shane Hulmes pass), 3:14
NWL: Hulmes 1 run (run failed), 1:15
Second quarter
NWL: Chase Sukanick 33 run (kick failed), 10:58
NWL: Sukanick 42 run (Leh to Sukanick pass), 8:44
NL: Garrett Smoyer 25 pass to Colin Karetsky (kick blocked), 3:03
NWL: Braxton Lakatosh 15 run (Hulmes run), 0:57
NWL: Bollinger 100 INT return (Sukanick kick), 0:00
Third quarter
NWL: Lakatosh 42 run (Sukanick kick), 11:08
TEAM STATISTICSNWL; NLFirst downs; 13; 12Rushes-yards; 28-263; 34-80Passing yards; 97; 146Comp-Att-INTs; 6-10-1; 8-22-2Punts-avg.; 1-46.0; 3-28.7Fumbles-lost; 0-0; 2-1Penalties-yards; 3-30; 1-15
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICSRushing: (Northwestern) Chase Sukanick 6-75, 2 TDs; Braxton Lakatosh 6-138, 2 TDs; Brady Zimmerman 1-6; Shane Hulmes 1-1, TD; Mason Bollinger 2-5, TD; Trey Snyder 2-12; Jesse Yenser 8-26; Kendall Wikert 1-3; team 1-(-3); (Northern Lehigh) Chris Frame 3-(-2); Grady Newhard 11-47; Garrett Smoyer 12-34; Mason Rothrock 2-2; Keith Lectora 2-(-1); Caleb Oswald 3-(-3).
Passing: (Northwestern) Leh 5-9-1, 91 yards; Sukanick 1-1-0, 6 yards; (Northern Lehigh) Smoyer 8-21-2, 146 yards, TD; Oswald 0-1-0.
Receiving: (Northwestern) Hulmes 1-15; Michael Lagowy 2-61; Bollinger 1-4; Zimmerman 1-11; Colin Macauley 1-6; (Northern Lehigh) Frame 3-44; Colin Karetsky 3-46, TD; Ryan Zambo 1-7; Chase Gall 1-49.
Senior writer Tom Housenick can be reached at thousenick@mcall.com
https://www.mcall.com/2025/08/28/northwestern-lehigh-football-rolls-over-mountain-road-rumble-rival/
