When you play a team with the talent of Notre Dame of Green Pond, you have to take advantage of every opportunity it gives you to put points on the board.

Palmerton played the Crusaders on an even keel through the first half on Friday night, but failed to convert after intermission.The end result was a 31-7 victory by Notre Dame, its fourth of the season without a loss."Missed opportunities hurt us," said Palmerton head coach Chris Walkowiak afterwards. " We had a chance to tie it there at the start of the second half and we didn't. We had two good drives and failed to score. But when you play big games, this is what it comes down to. You have to execute. We didn't and give credit to them, they did."The Crusaders didn't take long to put points on the board. After quarterback Tre Jordan hooked up with Nick Basenese for a 55-yard completion down to the Bomber one on the second play of the game, Mitch Daniel ran it in for the score. The two-point conversion failed and with 44 seconds off the clock, Notre Dame had a 6-0 lead.The Bombers didn't blink however, as Toby Sander ran the kickoff back to his own 41 giving them good field position.Ten plays later, Mike Stasko ran in for a nine-yard touchdown and Jacob Taschler booted the PAT giving Palmerton a 7-6 lead.The Bombers held the lead into the second quarter until Jordan worked his magic once again, finding Basenese for a 2-yard touchdown with 8:02 left in the half. Jordon found Destyn Woody open in the end zone for the two-point conversion and the Crusaders held on to a 14-7 lead into intermission.Palmerton took the opening kickoff and marched down to the Notre Dame 24, but ran out of downs.The Crusaders punted it right back to the Bombers and gave them good field position at their own 40.Once again, however, the Bombers got down to the Notre Dame 35 and ran out of downs again.With 3:14 left in the third quarter, Jordan ran in from five yards out and Brett Nesfeder's PAT made it 21-7.Jordan found Aaron Weller open for a 13-yard TD with 9:59 left in the game and Nesfeder's 29-yard field goal with 8:02 remaining ended the scoring."Right now we're a 3-2 team getting into the second half of the season and we'll be ready to come out and play the rest of the way," said Walkowiak. "It was a good effort on our part, but we're not playing for a consolation prize. We need to take the next step and play with teams that are this good. We need to raise the bar there to be a contender."REPEAT ... Notre Dame's offense might want to call 408 its lucky number. Last week against Northern Lehigh, the Crusaders finished with 408 total yards on offense and equaled the same number of yards against the Blue Bombers.BIG BOOTER ... Notre Dame's Brett Nesfeder continues to try and stake his claim as one of the best kickers in the Colonial League. Nesfeder booted two kickoffs into the end zone and nailed a 29-yard field goal before missing his first three-point attempt in a strong crosswinds afterwards from 28 yards out.STASKO'S STRUT ... Palmerton's Mike Stasko had another big game rushing and has now carried the ball 99 times in five games for 757 yards. Stasko looks to become the first Palmerton rusher to hit the 1,000 yard mark since Matt Falcone (1,053) and Jeff Noyes (1.244) did it back in 2008.