SALISBURY TOWNSHIP — Northern Lehigh head coach Joe Tout had been waiting for his team to put four full quarters of football together. The Bulldogs finally did that on Friday night, and it showed with their most impressive win of the 2019 season.

Northern Lehigh (4-3) used its running game to race out to a 21-0 lead through the first 12 minutes of play, en route to a 42-14 Colonial League win over Salisbury on Friday night.

“We felt we started slow in the Southern Lehigh game [last week],” Tout said. “Our kids never give up. We just talked about limiting mistakes and we did that tonight. It’s the first time we’ve done that … That’s been the Achilles heel.

“Last week we felt we played a good first, third and fourth quarter. The second quarter was a bit of a debacle. So we just said, let’s put a full game together.”

It seems as if the Bulldogs got the memo.

Northern Lehigh started strong with a 75-yard touchdown run from Mike Repsher on its first drive of the game. Then, just over a minute later, quarterback Zach Moyer hit Dale Wanamaker for a 40-yard touchdown on a double-reverse, flee-flicker pass that put the Bulldogs ahead 14-0.

“We didn’t expect that by any means,” Tout said of the fast start. “They have skill all over the place. I thought our defensive effort was outstanding, because like I said, it’s a different beast in an empty set; quads and single-back formations. And on top of it, they have the athletic quarterback. Our defense was outstanding. We never let them have the big play.”

After a Falcon turnover-on-downs, Moyer capped a nine-play drive with a 1-yard sneak into the end zone that made it 21-0. Northern Lehigh added to the lead on its first drive of the second quarter when Wanamaker scored from 25 yards out.

Northern Lehigh ran 26 plays in the first half, 25 of which were running plays. The Bulldogs would total 287 rushing yards, led by Repsher’s 142 on just 10 carries.

“We worked all week to prepare for this game,” Repsher said. “Salisbury is a very good, fast and athletic team. But I feel like we didn’t make as many mistakes. They had the turnovers and we didn’t make any mistakes.

“We saw film and we figured that their defensive backs were really athletic. We just threw it right up the gut at them.”

Salisbury (4-3) would get on the scoreboard early in the third quarter when Chad Parton took the second half kickoff back 80 yards to the house.

Northern Lehigh, however, didn’t lose its momentum. Repsher ran for 62 yards on the Bulldogs’ next drive, including a 28-yard touchdown run that made it a 34-7 advantage. Moyer and Wanamaker connected for another touchdown on Northern Lehigh’s next drive, and the two-point conversion run from Repsher enforced the mercy rule with 6:54 left in the third.

“We just worked all week on the defense and the pass coverage,” Repsher said.

“Offensively that was our plan — to go down hill,” Tout said. “That worked last week against Southern Lehigh, so that was the plan … Our offensive line I thought was very good tonight as well.”

Salisbury’s Blake Lettko scored from 21 yards out with 54 seconds remaining to close out the scoring.

SKID ENDED ... The win ended a brief two-game losing streak for the Bulldogs. Northern Lehigh came up short against Southern Lehigh (35-22) last week and Saucon Valley (21-14) in Week 5.

GETTIN’ TRICKY WITH IT ... Northern Lehigh’s double-reverse, flee-flicker on its second series kept Salisbury’s defense on its heels all night. Tout saw a similar looking play when he watch film against last week’s opponent Southern Lehigh. “We ran it with our look team in practice,” Tout said. “We put in speed sweep and then we have a reverse off of it. And we’ve run the reverse enough that we thought now we can pitch it back to the quarterback and run the flee-flicker out of it.”