Northern Lehigh head coach Joe Tout knows the importance of controlling the line of scrimmage.

After all, he was an all-state lineman during his playing days.

On Friday night, his guys in the trenches wore down Palmerton and the result was a convincing 49-28 victory in the annual Battle of the Blue Mountain.

The Bulldogs ran the ball on 61 of their 63 offensive plays, rushing for more than 400 yards and seven touchdowns, to improve to 9-1.

“That was just our MO,” said Tout. “We weren’t going to try and match their athleticism. They’re very athletic and have good team speed ... We wanted to go to our strength. That was the game plan. I would say 90% of our plays tonight were either power-I or our T-formation.

“Our kids were loving it. As a coach ... when our kids are coming over telling me, ‘Coach, they’re yelling dive and they can’t stop it,’ you love that because you know they’re invested, they’re feeling it, and they’re wearing them down.”

While the Bulldogs failed to move the ball successfully in the first quarter, their size upfront started paying dividends by the second frame.

The visitors scored on all three of their possessions in that period, including a 15-play drive that resulted in their first touchdown - a 2-yard run by Bailey Smith.

The next time they had the ball, quarterback Nick Frame broke off a 42-yard gain that set up the first of AJ Jimenez’s four scores and their first lead of the game. Following a well-executed onside kick, the advantage swelled to 21-8 when Jimenez went up the middle for a 19-yard touchdown with three minutes left until halftime.

“Our kicker Chase Moffitt does a great job with that,” said Tout. “Palmerton had good returns on the kickoffs, so we thought it was worth trying it because they were getting good field position on the kicks anyway. We thought it was there, and it was big to get that.

“That was key because it’s always big to be up by two scores. They started to move the ball in the second half, but we always had that cushion.”

The cushion became bigger at the start of the second half as Northern Lehigh took its opening possession and marched 67 yards in 10 plays, once again demonstrating their ability to control the line and time of possession.

Jimenez again provided the finishing touches, as his 4-yard TD run pushed the margin to 28-8 as the Bulldogs took nearly six minutes off the clock.

“The line of scrimmage was definitely the key there,” said Palmerton head coach Chris Walkowiak. “There’s no doubt, anybody who was here saw that. Their line was as good as advertised.

“We had some stops in the first quarter there and got an early score. But we didn’t respond as well as I thought we could have when they scored. We just didn’t bounce back. Their defense is good ... We’ll see what happened watching film and go from there, but the difference was definitely upfront.”

The Bombers, who led 8-0 after the first 12 minutes thanks to a 61-yard scoring run by Matt Machalik, started clicking offensively in the final two periods. A well-designed hook-and-lateral highlighted a drive that ended with a Machalik 2-yard tally, and a Machalik-to-Daniel Lucykanish 8-yard TD toss resulted in another score.

But by that point, Palmerton (6-4) was just trading scores with their rival and could never cut into the deficit.

“Our game plan coming in was to just pound the ball down their throats and once we got it going, we were hard to stop,” said Frame, who finished with 168 yards rushing on 16 carries. “It’s a great feeling (winning this game). No matter how good we are or how good they are, it’s always a battle.”

Frame ripped off runs of 15 and 18 yards to set up Smith’s 10-yard touchdown with 8:49 to play that pushed the margin to 42-22. The QB then tossed a 43-yard pass to Jesiah Burton that put the Bulldogs in the red zone again. Jimenez (136 yards on 23 carries) put the game out of reach with a 7-yard scoring run.

GETTING THEIR JUST DUE ... The Bulldogs offensive line of Jackson VanNorman, Landon Moll, Brody Dye, Ben Reitz, Seth Adams along with tight ends Austyn Smith and Sam Frame was the story of the game. “They’re amazing,” said Frame. “Every one of them played last year so they have so much experience.”

TOP SEED ... Coupled with Tri-Valley’s loss to Williams Valley, Northern Lehigh’s win put them on top of the District 11 Class 1A rankings. Palmerton, meanwhile, looks like it will be the fourth seed in Class 3A.

PASSING RECORD ... Machalik threw for 92 yards, allowing him to break Garrett Perschy’s single-season school record of 2,155.