KINTNERSVILLE In the first quarter of Friday night's Colonial League matchup, Palmerton saw a goal line stand work in its favor. In fact, the Blue Bombers turned that initial stand in the red zone into a quick six points.

After that beneficial defensive stand, and holding a 21-12 lead at half, it was two goal line stands by Palisades that worked against the Bombers in the second half.Instead of Palmerton going up by three scores, the Pirates' defensive stand turned the momentum and the Bombers eventually saw their lead evaporate.With 2.6 seconds left in the game, Palisades' Jared Colletti kicked a 21-yard field goal to hand Palmerton a heart-breaking 22-21 setback, their first loss of the season.After watching Palmerton's goal line stand in the opening quarter result in a 99-yard fumble recovery for a touchdown by the Bombers' Rai Washington, Palisades coach Kevin Ronalds offered his team words of wisdom for defending the opposition 10 yards near the end zone."We preach that kind of stuff," Ronalds said. "Because the opposition has the ball on the five-yard line, they believe and they know, that it doesn't mean they have points yet."They fought hard. I can't be any prouder of our boys right now."On the other hand, Palmerton coach Chris Walkowiak watched two TDs that were well within reach, one by seven yards and the other by a two, end up as turnover on downs both coming in the third quarter.The Bombers' defense looked like it might overcome those missed opportunties when they stopped the Pirates' chance to take a lead with 4:26 left in the game. Sophomore linebacker Jared Mooney had an interception at the Bombers' 11-yard line.With one last chance to put the game away, the Bombers were forced to punt from deep on their side of the field, giving the Pirates a short field.Seven plays later, the Bombers watched a win slip away when it had been in their control."We didn't execute," Walkowiak said. "I am not taking anything away from them, but it's a tough lesson to learn as we left a lot of points off the scoreboard. We had open receivers that we could have scored with ... two times within the 10 yard line, but that happens when you don't execute."Palisades came through in the clutch. Bottom line, we couldn't get a first down in the end. We needed two there in the end to ice the game with four minutes to go after we had a great stand there with the interception."While it was a sour taste to swallow, Walkowiak stated the Bombers will put this one behind them."We're going to go back and regroup," Walkowiak said. "This does not define us . It's one loss. We're going to take the lessons learned from this. It's stinks. But, we're going to bounce back and be ready to go Monday."