Early in the season, the Northwestern Tigers had trouble getting their offense going early in games. They straightened that out well, but now, their defense is struggling late in games and it led to a 21-8 loss against Southern Lehigh, dropping the Tigers to 4-4 on the season. Southern Lehigh, who sits atop the Colonial League West Division moves to 6-2.

Northwestern took advantage of a muffed punt by Tim Walter that was recovered by Tyler Slifer, and set up the Tigers with a first-and-10 at the Spartans 16-yard line. Northwestern went for the two-point conversion and Deven Bollinger hit Caleb Clymer in the end zone to put the Tigers up 8-0 with 4:57 left in the first quarter."That was a big play for us, to have the short field and be able to take advantage of recovering the football down there gave us momentum," said coach Josh Snyder. "We've talked about having to take advantage of opportunities, especially against good teams, and that was big."The teams let their defenses do the talking until late in the second quarter. Southern Lehigh put together a 12-play drive that ate up almost four-minutes off the clock, capping the drive with a 20-yard touchdown pass from Logan Edmond to Zach Mohr, who shook off a number of tacklers to get into the end zone.Southern Lehigh got the ball to start the second-half and drove the ball 82 yards, with Tim Walter breaking open a 40-yard run, which was extended even further by a personal foul penalty on Northwestern, giving the Spartans a first-and-10 at the Northwestern 26-yard line. Five plays later, Luke Strauss pushed the ball over from two yards out and Calvin Hearst's extra point was good to give the Spartans their first lead at 14-8.After Northwestern went three-and-out, Southern Lehigh again put together a strong drive, going 75 yards in less than three-minutes and went up 21-8 when Strauss ran into the end zone from 29 yards out and Hearst added the extra point.From there, both teams had some opportunities, but their defenses came up big to stop those opportunities. Northwestern had a 13-play drive that got as far as the Southern Lehigh four-yard line, but couldn't get the ball into the end zone and turned it over on downs. The Tigers got the ball back with 2:59 left to play, but on the first play of the drive, Bollinger was intercepted to squash any late rally.THE OTHER LOSS... Northwestern had Clymer and Dangello both go down with knee injuries and both players wound up on the sideline on crutches."It looks like Dangello's is an MCL injury and Clymer's could potentially be even worse than that," confirmed Snyder. "We'll have to wait and see what the trainers say, but to potentially lose those two with a couple games left would be tough, because we're not very deep at the skill positions."NOT USED TO THIS... With back-to-back losses to Bangor and Southern Lehigh, it's the first time that Northwestern has had a losing streak since they lost the last four games of the 2012 season when they finished 3-7.GET THE GOLD OUT... Northwestern and Southern Lehigh collaborated to have a "Gold Out" for Friday night's game. The student sections for both schools were encouraged to wear gold as part of an "Angel 34 Gold Out" to raise money for childhood cancer. The Northwestern student council has raised $1,000 that will be given to the Angel 34 Foundation.