NORTHAMPTON - It wasn’t a great start for Pleasant Valley on Friday night.

The end result wasn’t much better.

Northampton showed why it’s undefeated as its offense and defense both excelled in cruising to a 46-7 Eastern Pennsylvania Conference victory over the Bears.

“They’re a very good football team,” said PV head coach Blaec Saeger, whose team fell to 5-2. “They’re undefeated for a reason. They’re huge. They’re fast. They’re strong. They’re disciplined. A lot of things we were not today.

“They were just fantastic. I can’t say enough good things about them. On the flip side, we were just off tonight. I don’t know what it was. We weren’t ready to play, and that obviously falls on me. It’s my job to get them ready, so it’s something we did wrong and we have to go back to the drawing board.”

After the opening kickoff, the Bears fumbled on the first play from scrimmage. The Konkrete Kids (7-0) took advantage as Caden Henritzy carried three straight times, the final one from two yards out to get the home team on the board just over a minute into the contest.

After Northampton’s defense came up with a big stop on a PV fourth down play, the Kids marched 56 yards on six plays to go up two scores. Quarterback Antonino Russo hit Michael Coleman with a key 14-yard pass to keep the drive moving and he finished things off with a 22-yard run up the middle.

Despite the quick 14-0 lead, Northampton mentor John Toman still wasn’t comfortable.

“Last year that happened (getting an early lead) in the playoff game (against Pleasant Valley), and then we bogged down and couldn’t put any more points on the board. So, I was trying to make sure that the kids stayed focused when we got out to that quick lead, which they did so I was proud of that.

“We had a very short week to prepare because of the weather, so I was kind of nervous. But if you look at what we’ve done all year long, we’ve been pretty consistent with our defense. The defensive staff is very detail-oriented and the kids buy into what they’re doing, and it shows on the field. Tonight, they really did a great job. They created a turnover early on. And we had some great stops on fourth downs.”

The Bears were able to put some drives together, but they weren’t able to sustain them.

“We had no problem moving the ball,” said Saeger. “We’d get fourth-and-inches that we got stuffed on, and a fourth-and-two that we got stuffed on, things that we normally get. This offense is built on getting that fourth-and-short situation and it just didn’t happen tonight.”

Heading into halftime trailing just 14-0 wouldn’t have been a terrible situation for Pleasant Valley, but the Kids used a late strike in the second quarter to widen the gap and take momentum to the locker room. Russo completed a 16-yard pass to Jaelen Richardson, and Henritzy broke off a 44-yard run that led to another touchdown and a 20-0 cushion.

Northampton tallied on its first three possessions of the second half to go up 40-0 to put the game out of reach. Russo threw a pair of touchdown passes and also ran for another score.

“Everybody’s been loading the box on us, and we’ve been successful running it, but we thought our athletes on the edge were better than their athletes,” said Toman. “We have a lot of talented kids out there and a lot of weapons to go to.”

The Bears avoided the shutout when Val Byers-Robisnon reached the end zone on a 9-yard run with 3:49 left to play.

KING FOR THE NIGHT ... Russo, who threw two TD passes and ran for two, was named Northampton’s homecoming king at halftime.

BETTER HALF ... While the score didn’t show it, Saeger was pleased with the second half. “They showed a lot of heart in the second half, without a doubt,” he said. “They found something internally at halftime. The score didn’t depict it, but we just got beat by a better team.”