The Lehighton Indians football team has shown this season that battling with it in the trenches either on the offensive or defensive side of the ball is no easy task. The Indians two losses have come to two majorly talented teams in North Schuylkill (6-0, 7th ranked team in the state in AA) and Governor Mifflin (5-1, team to watch in AAAA state rankings).

Coming off a 35-13 loss to Governor Mifflin last week the Tribe wanted to get things heading back in the right direction and unfortunately for the Marian Colts it was the opponent next on Lehighton's schedule. The Indians (4-2, 4-1 AFL) controlled the line of scrimmage throughout the night, rushing for 256 yards en route to a 24-0 Anthracite Football League victory.Lehighton's first score of the night came off a 24-yard field goal by Tegan Durishin with about one minute left in the first quarter. It took a little while for the Indians offense to get going, but their "D" was spectacular from the onset. The Tribe forced the Colts to punt on their first three possessions of the ball game and only allowed 54 total yards and four first downs in the first half.Wyatt Clements would score Lehighton's first touchdown of the game with a three-yard plunge at the 1:41 mark in the second quarter and the Indians actually had a chance to score again right before the half. The Lehighton "D" was able to force Marian to punt for the fourth time in the half and got the ball down to the one yard line after a 27-yard run by Tyler Cann. The Indians burned their final timeout after the Cann run and when Clements couldn't get in on their next play time expired before they could spike the ball. The mishap resulted in a 10-point Lehighton advantage at intermission when it possibly could've been 17 in its favor."We weren't happy at all with how we ended the half there, so it was important for us to come out and set the tone in the second half," said Lehighton coach Tom McCarroll. "That mistake could've let them back in the game, so we knew getting the ball to start the second half that we had to make an impact. We didn't get it in the end zone, but we moved the ball a little bit and did some nice things and then defensively we just picked up right where we left off in the first half."Lehighton wasn't able to score on its first possession of the second half, but it did on its second. After forcing the Colts to punt yet again a 51-yard scamper by Clements set up a 13-yard hook up between Cann and Tyler Crum, giving Lehighton a 17-point lead. Clements and Crum much like they have throughout the season made the big plays on the night for the Tribe. Clements rushed for 135 yards and two scores, while Crum caught six ball for 83 yards and a touchdown."Playing strong defense and running the ball hard and wearing teams downs has been a winning formula for us," said McCarroll. "Clements, Crum, all of our guys are in great shape, even our lineman. We can move when we need to move and we saw some things that we thought we could take advantage of and our kids executed. Plus, when you play defense like we did tonight you're always going to have a chance at a successful outcome."The Indians' defense was even better in the second half than they were in the first, holding Marian to zero first downs. The Tribe then tacked another touchdown at the 4:48 mark in the fourth with another Clements rush, this time from seven yards out.It was a complete team win for Lehighton as they dominated the Colts in all facets of the game."We knew this was going to be a great league and you see that week in and week out," said McCarroll. "You could tell that just from the huge crowd here tonight. We look back at the North Schuylkill game and that bugs us because we know we didn't come to compete in the first half. We have nobody to blame, but ourselves there and I think our kids learned from that. We came back and beat a tough Blue Mountain team and then battled with Governor Mifflin. So, we knew if we played with the same kind-of effort that we've played with in the the last 10 quarters that we could defeat a good Marian team."