Northwestern Lehigh’s win over Pen Argyl was a 48-0 romp, but it gave the Tigers some answers to lingering questions.

First, they had struggled to score early in games this season, but scored 15 first-quarter points and had a 28-0 lead at the half.

Second, is the Tigers’ receiving corps going to be strong enough to give their offense another dimension? The answer is that some young receivers had a good game and showed that they are fitting into roles with the team.

“We have some talent, but they need to gain more varsity experience and they are doing that as the season goes along,” Northwestern head coach Josh Snyder said. “We set up some pretty basic routes and are slowly giving them more to chew on and they stepped up tonight.”

Juniors Devon Hildebrand and Dalton Clymer combined for six catches for 58 yards and senior Austin Sosnovik had one catch for 10 yards. The big pass play of the night was when freshman Mason Bollinger scored on a 26-yard pass from Cade Christopher to put the Tigers up 15-0 midway through the first quarter.

The strong ground game that Northwestern (3-1) has shown all season was on display with Christopher (110 yards) and Clymer (89 yards) picking up the bulk of the yardage. Clymer had two easy touchdown runs, the first on the opening drive on a 1-yard run and the second opened the scoring in the second quarter when he plowed through the line for a 2-yard TD run, making it 21-0.

Christopher added a 9-yard touchdown jaunt and then connected with Clymer on a 10-yard pass to put the Tigers up 35-0 on their opening drive of the third quarter.

Perhaps the player most satisfied with his touchdown run on the night was sophomore Eli Zimmerman, who finished up a nice, quick drive with the game well in hand in the fourth quarter. Zimmerman went 3 yards for the score that put the Tigers up 41-0 and Kian Osborne’s extra point made it 42-0.

The drive was satisfying for Zimmerman because on the second play of the drive, he was literally body slammed to the ground by Pen Argyl’s Damian Tyminski, who outweighs the sophomore back by 80 pounds. On the next play, Zimmerman ran for 16 yards and walked back to the huddle with a nod for Tyminski. On the drive, Zimmerman ran on five straight plays and picked up all 37 yards of his rushing yardage on the night.

“We were able to get some of the younger guys a chance to play and they really stepped up,” Snyder said. “We have a strong group of freshmen and sophomores who have shown us that they want to play and they have the talent to play. They had some opportunities tonight and they came through.”

The last touchdown came when Josh Wambold ran 11 yards to put Northwestern Lehigh up 48-0.

The Tigers defense has allowed just three points in the last two games. On the season they are allowing just 15 points a game.

“We take a lot of pride in holding teams down,” said senior Sam Mauro, who tipped a pass in the game. “We have worked really hard and we communicate well as a unit. I think football is the ultimate team game and you have to have that communication and really work well together and we have done that.”

The defense held Pen Argyl’s tandem of Brad Rissmiller and Tyminski to just one completion for four yards. Coming into the game, Tyminski was averaging nine catches per game for an average of 124 yards for the Knights (1-3). Rissmiller averaged 216 yards passing per game and finished the night with just 38 yards.

NO PUNTER, NO PROBLEM… Seth Kern usually handles the punting for Northwestern, but he has been out with a broken thumb suffered in the loss to Northern Lehigh in week two. Since his injury, the Tigers have not had to punt the ball after punting it five times in the first two games.

SALUTE … The Tigers saluted the Pennsylvania Army National Guard by wearing special camouflage style uniforms with Pennsylvania on the back. The team posed for photos with two members of the Guard who were on hand for the game.