Gritty. Resilient. Determined.

Friday night the Northern Lehigh Bulldogs’ performance can be described by all of these words in their 16-12 win over Pen Argyl.

The Bulldogs entered the contest having been outscored 96-22 in their two losses to begin the season while the Green Knights had blasted their first two opponents by a combined scores of 92-33 in their two wins.

Pen Argyl’s opening drive looked like the Green Knights might be on their way to a 3-0 record. Six plays from their own 20 resulted in an eight-yard touchdown pass by Brad Miller to Damian Tyminski who made the catch in the corner of the end zone through double coverage for a quick 6-0 lead. The big play in the 80 yard drive was a 69 yard catch and run play by Tyminski who had a big game, catching 10 passes for 156 yards.

Northern Lehigh followed with a solid drive that ended with no points and a punt. From their own 35, the Bulldogs marched to the Knights’ 35 in seven plays, mostly on a nifty counter run of 29 yards by Jack Tosh.

At the start of the second, on a fourth down from their own 11, the long snap sailed over Pen Argyl’s punter’s head for a safety making the score 6-2 in favor of the Knights.

The ensuing free kick set up the Bulldogs in good field position at the Pen Argyl 48. Tosh and Grady Newhard were featured on a 10 play, five minute drive culminating in Tosh’s one yard goal line plunge.

Northern’s coach Joe Tout took advantage of a diversified running attack, utilizing double tight end, power I and full house formations, wildcat runs, reverses and counter plays.

“We adjust our play calling to the personnel we have every year,” said Tout. “We lost our starting quarterback in the preseason. Freshman Garret Smoyer did a nice job running our offense tonight. We also knew they started several seniors on defense so we weren’t going to just line up and push them around.”

In the second half, the Bulldogs were outstanding in controlling the Knights passing game with their nickel and dime packages. Both teams failed to finish drives. With under five minutes to go in the game, Tosh broke through several tackles to complete a 55 yard drive with a 27 yard TD scamper to bring the score to 16-6.

Pen Argyl’s Brad Rissmiller found Tyminski for a 15 yard TD pass down the middle on the ensuing drive.

With only a four point lead, a crucial decision was made by Tout on their fourth and 4 from the Knight’s 44 yard line with a minute and a half to play.

“Our long snapper was hurt,” said Tout, “otherwise we would have punted.” Newhard ran off the right side for a first down and the Knights were called for a horse collar tackle which sent Northern Lehigh into their victory formation.

“Our defense stepped up big,” said Tout. “We played great in the secondary in the second half. We forced a coverage snap and nearly had a few picks over the middle. We were concerned about their number 3 (Tyminski). He’s a great receiver, but we held him in check for much of the second half.”

HORNS A PLENTY

... The start of the game was delayed for 40 minutes with lightning strikes within 10 miles of the stadium. The horn sounding caused all fans to vacate the bleachers. The scoreboard horn ended the game and minutes later, the lightning horn sounded again, sending the teams from the field into the locker rooms.

DIFFERENT STROKES

... Both teams had completely different game plans. Pen Argyl threw 33 passes to Northern Lehigh’s six. Northern Lehigh ran the ball 40 times to just 14 rushes for the Knights.