Last week’s incredible mastery by Northwestern in its thumping of previously undefeated Southern Lehigh has had a wonderful lingering effect upon the Tigers and their fans.

Now that its unblemished regular season record has been completed for the second time in school history, the Colonial/Schuylkill League Gold Division champions must set its sights on winning a District 11 3A title.

The challenge this week for coach Josh Snyder is to keep his team’s focus on No. 8 seed Lehighton (2-8), and not look ahead to possible matchups against Notre Dame and Palmerton.

“I think that we’re playing Thursday instead of Friday this week is good for us,” he said. “We usually give the kids off Monday, but a possible letdown was definitely in the conversation, so we had a good practice on Monday. We told the kids to check the box on putting the regular season to rest. Now we are 0-0 in the second season, and it’s time to get our minds right. It’s win or go home.”

Snyder mentioned that Lehighton’s record is deceiving as to how it has played, and Indian’s coach Tom McCarroll agreed.

“We’ve been competitive in at least four of our losses,” McCarroll said. “What’s hurt us is not finishing drives, costly turnovers, and penalties in the red zone.”

“Regardless of records, it’s not easy to beat a team twice,” said Snyder, whose Tigers routed Lehighton 49-0 in late September, and have created 24 turnovers this year. “That’s been a big part of our success. We work on ball-hawking every week with creating scenarios for interceptions and fumbles.”

McCarroll praised his team for its “no quit” attitude it has brought to every game.

“Our team has kept a positive attitude throughout,” he said. “The effort’s been great all year. We come to play.”

A 12-year veteran at the helm for the Indians, McCarroll has mentored great teams, and teams that have struggled. He’s hoping to catch Northwestern a bit lacking in energy after its big win against Southern Lehigh.

“They’re an extremely confident group right now as they should be, but kids are kids and you never know if overconfidence might be a problem,” he said.

McCarroll said game-planning for Northwestern is easy on paper, but chuckled when he said executing the game plan is another story.

“If they have a big playbook, they haven’t needed it much,” said McCarroll. “They run a few standard running and play-action pass plays that they’re very good at, and basically they say come and try to stop us, and no one has done it yet.”

Snyder believes the goal against a team like Lehighton that has struggled to put points on the board is to take charge early in the game.

“We’d like to put doubt in their minds, and then just play Tiger defensive football, stop their run, swarm tackle, and create turnovers,” he said. “That’s been our recipe for success. Give our offense good field position, and keep the momentum on our side.”

To give his team a chance to pull off a huge upset, McCarroll also believes a good start and scoring early are imperative.

“Of course, they aren’t used to playing from behind, so it would be a big momentum push to our side if we can get ahead and stay ahead, especially in the first half,” McCarroll said.

He intends to emphasize what’s at stake to his team.

“This is an opportunity to play our best game of the season, a clean football game without penalties, turnovers, and stalled drives,” said McCarroll. “And we’ll need to have the football bounce our way in key situations.”

The Indians will graduate 10 seniors from this year’s squad, a group that has come to practices and games and played its hearts out.

“This is a really great bunch of kids,” he said. “They have done a lot for our program, especially with leading by example for our younger players who will be a solid core moving forward. We won’t have to ask them to play hard on Thursday night and like I said, this is an opportunity to play our best football game against an outstanding opponent.”

Snyder is fully aware that Lehighton would love to knock off his top-seeded Tigers.

“We’ll just play our game. That’s what got us here. If things go our way early, we might try a few wrinkles to add to our offensive attack,” he said. “Use different personnel and be more flexible, but in no way are we looking past Thursday night.”

The winner of this game moves on to play the winner of Saucon Valley at Notre Dame. Earlier this year, Northwestern defeated Saucon 43-15, while Lehighton lost by one, 14-13, to the Panthers. Neither team has faced the Crusaders.