Northern Lehigh’s Joe Tout would like to have his team throw the ball more.

The thing is, they really don’t have to.

The Bulldogs dominated the line of scrimmage against Salisbury Friday night, running the ball at will en route to a 56-27 Colonial League victory.

Tout’s squad totaled 519 yards on the ground as three players topped the century mark.

“We want to throw, but right now we’re riding (the running game),” said Tout, whose team won its third straight to improve to 3-2. “Joe (Abidelli), Mike (Repsher) and Matt (Frame). Those kids just give you different looks.

“Mike’s the speed guy, the juke guy. Joe is a speed guy, but he can put down the shoulder, and then Matt is deceivingly fast. You don’t think he’s going to be as fast as he is, but he is. He wants to hit. It’s fun to watch. Matt’s come close to breaking the long one this season, and he finally did it tonight.”

All three actually broke off long touchdown runs, with Frame picking up a pair of 50-plus tallies.

“Our running game is really powerful right now and we knew that would help us out today,” said Frame, who ran for 210 yards. “I like to use my size because I know I can break a lot of tackles. I know if I can break tackles, I can get into the open field.”

Frame got into the open field late in the first quarter, pulling away for a 68-yard scoring run that gave the Bulldogs a 21-0 lead. Frame had opened the scoring earlier, while Repsher also added a 52-yard TD run.

“It really helps that we can spread the ball out,” said the 6-0 junior. “They can’t eye in on one person because all us can do the same thing.”

After the Falcons (1-4) got on the board, Frame again reached the end zone on a 3-yard run that was set up by Repsher’s 36-yard gain.

But that 28-7 advantage wasn’t safe - not with players like Quintin Stephens and Chad Parton on the other side of the ball.

The athletic Parton intercepted a pass right before halftime and returned it 24 yards for a pick-six. Stephens and Parton then hooked up for a 52-yard scoring toss on the third play of the third quarter, and suddenly the score was trimmed to 28-20.

“If someone told me to describe Salisbury, I’d say scary because even if you pressure (Stephens), he just does such a great job of running around and then (Parton) is a burner and he just makes plays,” said Tout.

“I like the way our kids responded. They score right before the half and then they scored right away (to open the second half), but our kids put the throttle down after that. We have to clean some things up, but like I said, our kids really responded.”

Abidelli broke off a 58-yard score less than a minute after the Falcons narrowed the margin to eight points. After the Northern Lehigh defense held and forced a punt, Repsher found a seam and broke free for a 65-yard return that quickly made it 42-20.

“We should have felt that momentum there,” said Salisbury mentor Andy Cerco. “I know I did, but obviously some other things happened on the field. I don’t know, maybe we didn’t have the momentum we thought we did.

“They’re a good team. They play hard, they play really hard ... They have three dudes, maybe even four, that can really run the ball.”

Frame’s 21-yard pickup helped set up another tally from Abidelli, while his 70-yard sprint to the end zone on the first play of the fourth quarter triggered the Mercy Rule.

It also put a capper on the impressive run game, which starts up front with a line that was fairly inexperienced coming into the season.

“In the spring we were just getting together for our first practice, and then it got delayed,” said senior JD Hunter, one of the team’s returning lineman. “And then we started again. From then until where we are now, I can’t even begin to tell you how much we’ve improved as a line and as a unit. We work really well together.”

Tout is hoping things continue to go well.

“The kids have bought in,” he said. “We have to take care of next week, and if we do that things will take of themselves (for the playoffs). Our kids are getting better every week.”

BIG PLAYS ... Of the Bulldogs’ 40 offensive plays, 14 of them gained 10 or more yards. Repsher and Abidelli each had four double-digit yardage plays, while Frame had three.

GETTING DEFENSIVE ... Abidelli had three tackles for negative yards, one of them a sack. Josh Schaffer had two, including a sack.

EVERY QUARTER ... NL scored in every quarter and now has a string of 11 straight frames scoring points.