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CAN’T SPELL RAIDERS WITHOUT AIR ... Tamaqua’s Brayden Knoblauch threw for 222 yards and three touchdowns last week against Blue Mountain.

Two of those scores went for over 50 yards (54 and 53), both of them to Matt Kistler.

In the past 30 years, a total of 323 games, Knoblauch is just the third Blue Raider quarterback to throw two touchdowns of over 50 yards in the same game.

The others were Nate Edmonds, who did it twice during the 2012 season, and Geoff Kruczek, who did it against Mahanoy Area in 1991.

As for Kistler, he is the only Tamaqua player during that span to catch two 50-plus touchdowns in one game.

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FORCING TURNOVERS ... Palmerton posted a 63-30 victory over Pen Argyl last Saturday.

The Blue Bombers helped their cause by forcing eight turnovers in the contest.

The last time Palmerton forced its opponent to give the ball up that many times was Sept. 13, 2013 (57 games ago) when Salisbury threw four interceptions and fumbled the ball away four times.

You have to go back to Sept. 17, 1999 (204 games ago) to find a contest where the Bombers forced more turnovers. In that game, a win over Notre Dame, Palmerton intercepted four passes and recovered six Crusader fumbles.

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HIGH FIVE ... Jim Thorpe’s Jarrin Geisinger, who was named the Player of the Week, scored five touchdowns last week in a win against Midd-West.

The last time an Olympian player recorded five TDs in a single game was Sept. 8, 2006 (132 games ago) when Craig Zurn did it against Mahanoy Area during a 42-6 victory. Zurn ran for four scores in that contest, and also returned an interception for a touchdown.

Speaking of defensive scores, Dylan Dailey had a fumble recovery for a touchdown in the win last Friday. It marked the second straight game Dailey has scored a defensive touchdown. The last time Jim Thorpe had back-to-back games scoring a defensive touchdown was 2008. On Sept. 5 of that year, CJ Lehmann scooped up a fumble and traveled 64 yards to the end zone. The following week, Jimmy Nunez picked up a loose ball and went 87 yards for a score.

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GETTING A LEG UP ... Jim Thorpe’s Chris Condley (28 points), Tamaqua’s Nate Boyle (26) and Northwestern’s Connor de Wit (22) have all passed 20 points as kickers at the midway point of the regular season.

That got us thinking what area player has totaled the most points in a season with just his foot.

Over the past 25 years, that honor goes to Aaron Mill of Northern Lehigh, who in 2003 accumulated 75 points as a kicker. Mill booted 66 extra points and three field goals during the Bulldogs’ run to the state championship game. The next closest to Mill is Northwestern’s Chris Horn, who had 65 points in 2006.