On the night he set the school record for career touchdown passes, Palisades’ Ethan Brader showed that’s not all he can do.

Brader tossed a pair of first-half touchdowns to give him a Palisades’ record of 31 for his career.

The senior playmaker also ran for a touchdown, returned a punt for a score, and picked off a pass and ran it back for a TD.

His five-touchdown performance propelled the Pirates to a 54-14 Colonial League victory over Northern Lehigh on Friday night.

“Brader and (Trey) Gretzinger are both outstanding athletes,” said Northern Lehigh coach Joe Tout. “We knew coming in that they were big-play kids and they proved it.

“Brader did a little bit of everything for them tonight. But he’s not only a great athlete, he’s a really intelligent, veteran player. He was checking into different plays at the line scrimmage and then executing them perfectly.”

Brader was nearly perfect as he completed 10 of 11 passes for 101 yards — all of them in the first half as Palisades stormed out to a 33-0 lead.

“Ethan showed his versatility,” said Palisades coach Kevin Ronalds. “He can do so many things to help a team. He scored in all three phases tonight — offense, defense and special teams.

“Thanks to his big plays in the first quarter, we never really gave Northern Lehigh a chance to get started.”

Northern Lehigh actually did have a chance to get off to a good start as the Pirates fumbled the opening kickoff and the Bulldogs recovered at the 30-yard line. An 18-yard pass from Gage Hunsicker to Cameron Kline put the ball in the red zone. But a turnover two plays later ended the threat.

“We had an opportunity to jump on them early and get some momentum” Tout said. “We thought the reverse was there, but we fumbled the handoff.

“That comes down to execution and it’s something we need to be better at it. We are still too inconsistent.”

It took only six plays for Palisades to drive 81 yards and take a 6-0 lead on a Gretzinger six-yard run.

Brader took over from there.

He scored on a 68-yard punt return and an 18-yard pick six to make it 19-0. In the second quarter he added touchdown passes of nine yards to RJ Smith and 24 yards to Ethan Miller.

“They’re a good, physical football team,” praised Tout. “They have some really impressive athletes at the skill positions as well. They jumped on us early and we were never able to get back in it.”

A 31-yard run by Brader on the Pirates’ first possession of the second half made it 40-0 and kicked in the mercy rule.

“We have to bounce back,” said Tout. “We have two rivalry games ahead of us (Northwestern and Palmerton) and we would really like to get to that five-win mark.”

QUICK STRIKES ... Palisades’ three first-quarter touchdowns came in the span of just 96 seconds.

BIG DAWGS ... Northern Lehigh’s second-half TDs came on two big plays. Hunsicker hit Mike Repsher with a 27-yard TD pass and Trevor Amorim ran 60 yards for a score.

ANOTHER RECORD ... In addition to Brader’s school record, Gretzinger also set one for career rushing yards. He set the new mark on a 6-yard run in the opening quarter.

ALL EVEN ... The Bulldogs’ record dropped to 4-4 on the season. Palisades is 6-2.

EFFICIENT OFFENSE ... Because of the special team score, the defensive score, and running clock for most of the second half, Palisades had just seven offensive possession — and scored on six of them.

BULLDOG PICK ... The only Pirate offensive possession that didn’t produce a touchdown ended on a spectacular leaping interception by Northern Lehigh’s Zack Moyer