For Northern Lehigh’s seniors, this season’s Mountain Road Rumble was unlike any they had ever experienced before.

The annual rivalry was erased in 2020 by COVID, but as freshmen and again as juniors, the class of 2023 had never beaten Northwestern until their final shot came around.

The backyard rivals battled until the final second, with the Bulldogs taking a 34-27 win on their home field Thursday night.

“Knowing that we have this 3A schedule again and you throw these guys (Northwestern Lehigh) in the mix, and I thought in preseason that we could start 0-2, and now we’re the opposite,” said Northern Lehigh coach Joe Tout.

The Bulldogs came out rolling early with backs A.J. Jimenez-Wittong and Izaiah Ramos both getting plenty of carries. Quarterback Nick Frame also took a few turns and used some early hitch patterns to establish a passing game. Northern Lehigh methodically took its first drive of the game down the field, and Ramos capped it with a four-yard jaunt into the end zone for the only score of the first quarter.

Northern Lehigh used the same mix of plays with success in the second quarter as it kept the Northwestern defense on its heels. Two drives resulted in touchdowns, with Ramos getting his second of the night on a seven-yard run, and Frame hurdling a pile of players at the line of scrimmage for a one-yard touchdown run. An earlier missed extra point, along with a failed two-point conversion, left the score at 19-0 before Northwestern got on the board.

The Tigers started to find some holes to run through and were able to move the ball down the field at a steady pace as they stuck primarily to the ground game. Running back Dalton Clymer closed out the drive with a three-yard run to get Northwestern on the board just before the end of the first half.

Northwestern had the ball coming out of the locker room, and used the momentum of their late first-half score to again go on the prowl and make it 19-13 on a three-yard run by Clymer.

With Frame on the sidelines dealing with cramping, sophomore quarterback Ayden Oswald came on to lead the offense at the end of a drive and wound up picking up his first touchdown on a two-yard run to put the Bulldogs up by two scores midway through the third quarter.

From there, it was Northwestern’s turn to put the Northern Lehigh defense on its heels. Christopher – who had missed on a couple of longer pass attempts earlier in the game – was right on target to hit Seth Kern for a 48-yard TD toss with 2:31 left in the third quarter. Christopher struck again on a fourth-quarter punt return, going 65 yards into the end zone, as the Tigers officially erased the early deficit to tie the game at 27.

The ensuing drive was all about just staying alive for the Bulldogs’ offense. On a fourth-and-one, Jimenez-Wittong picked up six yards on the ground, and moments later, Northern Lehigh was faced with a third-and-25 before Frame hit fellow senior Austin Smyth for 31 yards to keep the drive going. Ramos finished off the drive with a three-yard run, and Chase Moffitt added the extra point to make it 34-27.

“We lost a lot of momentum. They were scoring on us left and right,” Frame said. “It was a third-and-long, (I) threw it up to Austin Smyth and he made a very good play on the ball. That just gave us our momentum back. And we just kept on pounding it. Then, we finally scored. And we milked as much clock as we could.”

Northwestern wasn’t done, putting together one final drive to get deep in Northern Lehigh territory. Christopher looked over the middle and had no open receivers until he found Eli Zimmerman at the front corner of the end zone and tried to hit him with a pass. The pass was just short, and Zimmerman was unable to come back to make a play on the pass that fell onto the goal line for the final play of the game.

“I’ve got to give our guys a lot of credit for the heart they showed to come back,” said Northwestern coach Josh Snyder. “That being said, I am really disappointed in our execution on both sides of the ball. We were undisciplined most of the night.”

END OF A STREAK

... The loss to Northern Lehigh not only was the first for Northwestern since 2016, but it was its first loss to a public school since 2018.

ROAD AHEAD

... Northern Lehigh looks for a 3-0 start as it plays at Pen Argyl next week, while Northwestern (1-1) will be at home against Blue Mountain (1-0).