Northern Lehigh’s offense had some opening-night jitters Friday against Catasauqua.

Its defense, however, was in midseason form.

The Bulldogs frustrated the Roughies throughout most of the contest, leading to a 32-12 Colonial-Schuylkill League victory.

“I couldn’t be happier with our defensive effort,” said Nolehi head coach Joe Tout. “Our front did kind of what we expected. We leaned on them, and then finally some things kind of broke offensively. Early, we had turnovers and we were trying to bounce too much.

“We felt at halftime we were just going to rely on our defense. We knew on offense, things were going to break. Our plan was to wear them down, shuffle kids in. Like I said, the star tonight was our defense.”

Through the first three quarters, Tout’s club allowed Catty just 72 yards of offense on 36 plays - an average of just two yards per play. More importantly, they allowed no points over that stretch.

That allowed the offense to find its way after a slow start, which included two first-half turnovers.

Midway though the second quarter, the Bulldogs took advantage of a Catty fumble and drove 41 yards for the game’s opening score. Quarterback Nick Frame had a key 12-yard run during the drive and Izaiah Ramos capped the march with a 7-yard touchdown run.

That’s the way things remained until late in the third quarter when the home team doubled its advantage. The Bulldogs took over on their own 20 after a punt, and put together an 11-play, 80-yard drive that resulted in a second score.

A 24-yard pass from Frame to Austin Smyth keyed the march, which ended with a 24-yard TD run by Ramos.

“(Frame) hit on that pass when we needed it,” Tout said. “It was a big momentum swing. He just reacted, I don’t think he thought about it. He just booted. We wanted to go boot action, and that was a huge pass to Austin. That got the momentum going our way. Once we were up two scores, we felt pretty good.

“This year, we feel good with our defense. We’re going to be able to lean on those guys. We don’t have to put up a ton of points, and we’ll still be all right.”

For good measure, though, Northern Lehigh continued to put up points.

Early in the fourth, key runs by Grady Newhard, Ramos and John Abidelli put the Bulldogs deep in Catty territory. Frame then connected with Ramos on a 7-yard scoring pass that extended the margin to 19-0.

Seventeen seconds later, Ethan Karpowich intercepted a pass and raced 24 yards to the end zone to give Northern Lehigh a comfortable lead.

“I’m happy (the defense got in on the scoring), especially for Ethan,” Tout said. “Ethan Karpowich is going to be a linebacker who breaks out for us this year. He kind of went under the radar at linebacker, but not with the coaching staff. We knew how good of a player he was, and I was happy he was able to get that pick tonight.

“We elevated Dylan (Hofmann) to defensive coordinator this season, so I think he had a great effort tonight calling our defense.”

LATE SCORES ... The Roughies managed two late scores, both on 3-yard runs - one by starting quarterback Christian Fye and the other by his backup Aiden Hess. One tally was set up by a 44-yard pass to Ian Jucia, while the other came after a 52-yard run by Jyzaiah Bonilla. The Bulldogs also added a late tally when Abidelli broke free for a 69-yard TD run with 2:31 left to play.

OFFENSIVE STANDOUT ... Ramos had three scores, two coming on toss plays to the right side. “I trust my fullback fully, so I’m following him through the hole every single time,” said the senior who finished with 83 yards rushing and 28 yards receiving. “I have the speed and my fullback has the power ... At halftime, we just walked in and fixed some mistakes like fumbling the ball. Other than that, we really didn’t change anything because we trust our offense fully. But honestly, I think we won this game because of our defense.”

BACKFIELD DEPTH ... Northern Lehigh doesn’t look to have a go-to guy in the backfield this season, instead relying on a number of players. “We’re going to shuffle linemen in, and then it’s going to be a lot of Izaiah, it’s going to be AJ (Jimenez Wittong), it’s going to be John Abidelli, those guys carrying the load,” Tout said. “And then Grady Newhard will come in and he’s going to be used more and more as the year goes along. So, we kind of like that stable of running backs that we have.”