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Northwestern pulls away from Indians

For much of the season, the Northwestern offense was known for its three-headed monster of Justin Holmes, Justin Rodda and Nick Henry. Rodda went down with an injury a couple weeks ago and likely won’t return during the postseason and on Friday night, Henry finished a run by limping out of bounds after pulling a quad muscle.

Just as the Tigers covered Rodda’s injury by moving some guys around, they worked around Henry’s injury by moving Dalton Clymer into the offense. Clymer rushed for his first varsity touchdown as part of Northwestern’s 54-19 win over Lehighton in the quarterfinals of the District 11 football playoffs.

Clymer finished the night with 77 yards on 10 carries as Northwestern put together a total of 593 yards of total offense on the night. Holmes played a big role in the offense by throwing for 266 yards and three touchdowns. The highlight throw of the night came when Holmes scrambled and found Taylor Wikert open downfield and hit him with a perfect strike for a 66-yard touchdown.

Holmes also worked some magic when he found Cody Hallock and got the ball to him even though it was tipped by a defender. The catch was the first of Hallock’s varsity career and went for a 54-yard touchdown.

“We always tell our guys that they have to be ready and they’ve done a good job of that,” said Tiger coach Josh Snyder. “Clymer has gotten some time on the field and we use him in practice to spell Nick [Henry], so he’s familiar with what we do and he did a nice job tonight.”

Clymer ran for a 12-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter after Northwestern Lehigh took over on downs at the Lehighton 43-yard line. The five-play drive saw Clymer carry the ball four times to pick up 34 yards.

“I was shaking a little bit, but getting into the second half and even late first half, I started to get used to it and I really started rolling.” said Clymer.

Lehighton scored on their first drive with a drive that covered 68 yards in seven plays. Richard Fronheiser came out throwing and completed three passes on the drive, including a toss to Hunter Crum, who went down the sideline and into the end zone from 39 yards out. A bad snap spoiled the extra point attempt, but the Indians had an early 6-0 edge.

Northwestern scored on back-to-back drives with Holmes throwing to Taylor Wikert for 60 yards to cap the Tigers first drive of the game and then Henry went in from three yards out to stretch the lead to 13-6.

The 66-yard touchdown reception by Wikert followed before Reed Conrey intercepted a pass and returned the ball 34 yards to the Lehighton 48 to set up another touchdown drive by the Tigers. A Christopher seven-yard run completed that drive and Northwestern ahead 26-6.

“Conrey had that interception and it was pretty big for us because they were kind of knocking on the door and we were able to turn that around and get seven points on our side,” said Snyder. “It always kills some momentum when you can shut down a drive like that.”

Lehighton struck back just before the half with Fronheiser engineering a drive from the Northwestern 43-yard line. JJ McDowell did much of the work with five carries, but twice in the drive, Fronheiser hit Zack Hunsicker, including on a 16-yard catch-and-run that made it a 26-13 game at halftime.

Northwestern put together back-to-back touchdown drives early in the second half to stretch the lead to 40-13.

The Indians used a 73-yard drive to get their final TD. A 22-yard pass from Fronheiser to Crum produced the score.

Holmes and Clymer added fourth quarter scoring runs for Northwestern.

BACK HOME AGAIN … If you went strictly by the 4A rankings, Northwestern would have had to travel to Pottsville next week for a semifinal matchup. Instead, they will get to stay home and face Wilson. The Warriors upset Pottsville 18-14 to earn the spot against Northwestern next week.

HOBBLING HENRY… Henry was on the sideline for much of the game after suffering his injury. Snyder said that his status for next week is unknown but that he was pretty tender.