One game not only turned the tide on an undefeated season for the Northwestern Tigers, but also made the race for the Colonial League championship very interesting. Southern Lehigh came into The Jungle and downed Northwestern 40-37, dropping the Tigers to 6-1 on the season and pulling themselves up to 6-1 and into a tie with Northwestern at the top of the West Division. Saucon Valley is the only other 6-1 team in the Colonial League.

Travis Edmond threw for 279 yards and rushed for another 151 yards on the night, leading the Spartans offense. The two teams traded scoring blows through much of the first half, with Frank Dangello hitting Cam Richardson on a six-yard touchdown pass with just :06 left in the second quarter, giving Northwestern a 21-20 lead at the half. Dangello finished the night 7-for-14 for 96 yards and two touchdown passes.Northwestern made some mistakes, which is not the norm for them, and came up short when they needed a big play, which is also not a usual part of their play. With less than a minute to go in the first quarter, Dangello attempted to pitch the ball to Dylan Snyder and the play was disrupted by a strong defensive push, resulting in a fumble that Nico Bonnie recovered and ran in for a touchdown. The Tigers lost another fumble in the second quarter that also led to a Southern Lehigh touchdown.In the second half, Northwestern twice went for it on fourth-and-one in their own territory and both times, the Spartans defense was up to the task and stuffed the play resulting in the Tigers turning the ball over on downs. On both ensuing drives, Southern Lehigh was able to put the ball in the end zone, adding to the problem."Obviously, the two fourth-and-ones in our own territory were huge, but I had faith in our guys to get it done. They were very aggressive on defense, maybe I should have called a couple of play actions a little bit earlier to soften them up a little bit, but we stuck to our game plan and they played really well against us," said coach Josh Snyder.Northwestern suffered a key loss on their first turnover when tackle Chris Trumbauer went down with a concussion on the play and didn't return. Trumbauer has been a presence from both his offensive and defensive tackle positions and it hurt the Tigers on both sides of the ball."Our other guys are capable, but they're not a Chris Trumbauer, who's a two-gap player and that definitely hurt us not having him on defense or offense," admitted Snyder. "I thought Jacob Ruch stepped in and played well on offense and he's only a sophomore, so we're pretty happy about that."Northwestern was down by 11 points with just under two-minutes left in the game, when Taylor Breininger scooped up a fumble and ran 75 yards for a touchdown. Dangello hit Richardson on a two-point conversion, to cut the lead to three, but Southern Lehigh recovered an onside kick at midfield and were able to run out the clock.A win would have put Northwestern comfortably in the Colonial League driver's seat, but the loss makes things much more interesting, albeit tougher for the Tigers. The key for Northwestern now is to not let this loss become a monkey on their backs as they play through the rest of the schedule that starts with a trip to Palmerton next week."It's all right," said junior Andrew Sorensen. "We've got to keep our heads up and we've got great leaders on our team, like Frankie [Dangello] and Cam [Richardson] and all those guys, so we just have to keep our heads up and just keep winning our games."