It was a near-perfect start to the season for Northwestern.

For Tamaqua, not so much.

The defending District 11 Class 3A champion Tigers flexed their muscles early and often and rolled to a 49-6 victory over the Blue Raiders.

“You never know exactly where you are at as team going into your opener,” said Northwestern coach Josh Snyder. “As a coach you usually have a feel about where your team is at, but until you go out and play a game, you can never really be sure.

“I knew we were going to be good defensively, but I didn’t know how good - and I still don’t know for sure - but I was really happy with how we looked tonight. We played fast and played aggressive. It was a nice way to start the season. Offensively, we took advantage of some great field position and were very efficient. As openers go, this was a strong all-around performance.”

Northwestern held Tamaqua to minus-six yards of total offense in the opening half, and forced three turnovers. Meanwhile, the Tiger offense scored touchdowns on all six of their first-half possessions to build a commanding 42-0 lead.

“That’s a really nice team,” Tamaqua coach Sam Bonner said about the Tigers. “We’re very young up front, so we knew that there were probably going to be some growing pains early in the season. Give Northwestern credit, they played very aggressive along the line of scrimmage and took advantage of our youth up front. They gave us a lot of problems.

“We also turned the ball over a few times early in the game and you just can’t do that against good teams.”

The combination of Northwestern’s dominating play in the trenches and Tamaqua’s miscues gave the Tigers a lot of short-field offensive possessions.

“Field position was obviously a huge factor,” Snyder said. “It seemed like almost every time we got the ball in the first half we were starting in their territory.

“We struggled a little with our running game in the first series or two, but we made a couple of big fourth down plays to overcome it. After that, we made a couple of adjustments because of what Tamaqua was doing defensively, and that helped us get our running game untracked.”

The Tigers got their first big fourth-down conversion on their opening possession when quarterback Shane Leh hit Mason Bollinger for an 18-yard TD pass on a fourth-and-nine play.

The next two Northwestern touchdowns were set up by turnovers that gave the Tigers the ball deep in Raider territory. Dalton Clymer scored from six yards out on a fourth-and-two play to make it 14-0, and then added a 4-yard score to make it 21-0 with 3:14 still left in the opening quarter.

In the second quarter, Clymer and Devon Hildebrand both added one-yard scores and Eli Zimmerman raced in from 13 yards out.

Quarterback Luke Kane had a 16-yard TD run for Tamaqua in the third quarter and Carter Zentz had a six-yard scoring run for the Tigers in the fourth quarter of a briskly played second half that was played under the mercy rule.

While it will be easy for Northwestern to find a lot of positives it can build on heading into week two, Bonner said Tamaqua’s goal will also be to find things to build on.

“There is a lot of season left,” Bonner said. “We need to regroup and improve on the things we struggled with tonight and keep building and getting better. We need to improve every practice and every game and if we do that, we’re going to be alright.”

SHORT FIELD ... Northwestern’s six first-half possessions started from its own 38 and 45-yard lines, and from the Tamaqua 45, 26 14 and 13-yard lines. That’s an average starting point on the Raider 36-yard line. Meanwhile, Tamaqua’s average starting position on its six possessions was its own 29-yard line.

CAUSING HAVOC ... Tamaqua had 17 running plays in the first half and eight of them went for no gain or negative yardage. Snyder made special mention of the defensive play of tackle Jackson Huber and linebacker Shane Hulmes.

TURNOVER TRIFECTA ... Hildebrand had an interception and two fumble recoveries for the Tigers.

DOUBLE TROUBLE ... The Tigers rotated quarterbacks Bollinger and Leh throughout the opening half. The two hooked up with each other for two scoring plays. In addition to the Leh to Bollinger completion for the opening score, Leh also hit Bollinger with a two-point conversion pass off a reverse following the second Tiger TD.