When you can’t hang on to the football, your chance of picking up the win evaporates quickly.

That was the case for Northern Lehigh on Friday night as the Bulldogs lost a couple of fumbles and threw two interceptions giving Southern Lehigh enough help to hold on for a 21-14 victory in a Colonial League matchup at Bulldog Stadium.

Northern Lehigh head coach Joe Tout wasn’t too happy with the performance of his Bulldogs, who actually were in the game despite making some key mistakes.

“We were very sloppy and despite that, we should have won the game,” Tout said. “Even though we lost last week, I think we got big heads because we did a lot of good things. But our practices have to get better or else we aren’t going to improve from week to week.

“Defensively, we really picked it up in the second half, but offensively we made too many mistakes.”

The Spartans kept the ball out of the Bulldogs possession most of the first half. They put together a nine-play drive after recovering a fumble that saw quarterback John Rizzuto find Tyler Houser open for a 5-yard touchdown and Ayden Sharper booted the PAT for a 7-0 lead with just over four minutes left in the opening quarter.

Jacob Fauzio picked off a pass and returned it down to the Nolehi 18 near the end of the first quarter. Less than a minute into the second quarter, Syncere Jackson took it in from 11 yards out and Sharper’s PAT made it 14-0.

The Bulldogs finally put an offensive drive together with Trevor Amorim breaking loose for a 30-yard TD run with nine minutes left in the half, but the kick failed leaving the Spartan lead at 14-6.

The Spartans are usually the passing team and the Bulldogs like the running game, but in this contest it was the opposite.

Southern Lehigh used nine straight rushes, the final four by backup quarterback Logan Shorb, who scored on a 15-yard run and Sharper’s kick made it 21-6.

The Bulldogs used an 11-yard TD pass from Dylan Smoyer to Ethan Karpovich with 1:43 left until intermission and Mike Repsher ran in for the two-point conversion.

The Bulldog defense came up with a stop as Repsher intercepted a pass with 52 seconds left on his own 48, but turned it over on downs at the Solehi 23 as the half ended.

Northern Lehigh’s defense tightened things up in the second half as it stopped Southern Lehigh’s first drive in the third quarter on its 17.

Southern Lehigh kept the pressure on but some big plays by Nolehi defensively stopped another drive on the Bulldog 29.

The Bulldogs had one last chance late in the game as they drove down to the Southern Lehigh 39, but Fauzio came up with an interception with 1:08 left and the Spartans ran out the clock.

HOT POTATO ... The Bulldogs had trouble holding on to the football, and despite fumbling nine times, they only lost two.

FRAME SHINES … Matt Frame wasn’t only the Bulldogs leading rusher on the night, he was the sack leader defensively and Coach Tout said afterwards if he would have 11 players like him, things would be much better.