With a big game against undefeated Southern Lehigh looming for next week, playing a struggling Palmerton team this week could have easily gone sideways for a team — but not for Northwestern.

The Tigers put together a strong rally through the first half of the game, holding a 35-0 halftime advantage and winning 42-7. The win means Northwestern (5-1) will have won four straight going to Southern Lehigh to face the 6-0 Spartans next Friday night.

Quarterback Deven Bollinger hit five different receivers and finished the night 11-for-17 for 277 yards and no interceptions. He also made a couple of big plays on defense, one running down Andrew Sabo to prevent a possible Palmerton touchdown. The senior finished with four TD passes, while Nick Henry finished off two drives with touchdown runs.

On its second drive of the game, Bollinger hit Justin Holmes down the middle for a 62-yard connection that put Northwestern up 6-0. Coach Josh Snyder – as he often does – elected to go for two and Henry carried up the middle for the early 8-0 lead.

After a stalled drive and a short punt, Northwestern got the ball at the Palmerton 44-yard line with three seconds left in the first quarter. On a third-and-four, Bollinger hit Justin Rodda at the 30-yard line and Rodda made a swift move to elude a tackler and sprint into the end zone, making it 15-0.

“Justin has played really well, and he’s made a couple of exceptional plays for us,” said Snyder. “That catch and run was a really athletic play where he just made something more out of the play than what was there and got us into the end zone.”

That short drive seemed to open the flood gates as Northwestern would score on its next three possessions, the first coming on another TD pass to Holmes for 27 yards, then an 11-yard run by Henry and a 5-yard strike from Bollinger to Rodda to put Northwestern up 35-0 with 3:12 left to play in the first half.

“We have an offense that can score points in bunches sometimes and we took advantage of some mismatches, and the fact that they didn’t have a lot of depth to come at us worked to our advantage,” said Snyder. “They are down to something like 19 players and they have some talented kids and good coaches, but they just don’t have the depth that they really need.”

Palmerton’s sophomore quarterback, Lucas Heydt, was frustrated by a lack of time to throw the ball and the coverage that Northwestern had on his receivers. Heydt went 6-for-15 for 46 yards and one interception before being replaced by senior Jordan Nelson, who started the game in the Blue Bombers backfield and finished with 53 yards rushing on nine carries.

The interception came on a third-and-nine play when Holmes stepped in front of a pass intended for Nelson and returned the ball deep into Palmerton territory. The play was brought back to the Palmerton 28-yard line because of a block in the back during the return. Rodda almost had another interception midway through the second quarter, but couldn’t hang onto the ball.

“We really worked on fixing some things on our pass coverage this past week and I think that it showed tonight for us,” said Snyder. “We had that big interception to interrupt a drive and wound up turning that into a score for us, so I was happy with the progress.”

With the mercy rule keeping the clock running in the second half, Palmerton got the ball at the Northwestern 20 after stopping the Tigers on a fourth-and-one. Nelson engineered a five-play drive capped by Sabo going over from a yard out to make it 35-7. Northwestern took the kickoff and needed just three plays to strike back, with Bollinger hitting Dom Harding on a 45-yard pass and Henry going in from two yards out to cap the scoring.

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN ... It looked like lineman Connor Snyder might have a touchdown catch to his credit, but the play was called back when the officials ruled that Snyder didn’t check into the game as a receiver. It was the second straight week that Northwestern tried a gadget play after successfully completing a flea-flicker last week against Bangor.

THE UTILITY MAN ... Nelson finished with a big night offensively, accounting for 151 yards (53 rushing, 64 passing and 34 receiving). The offense moved swiftly with Nelson under center, especially when he entered and hit on his first 10 pass attempts.