CENTER VALLEY — Apparently, the Southern Lehigh offense didn’t want to spend too much time on the field.

On three of their first four possessions, the Spartans took the ball into the end zone, the first time on a 40-yard touchdown run and the next two on pass plays from Logan Edmond. The quick strikes allowed Southern Lehigh to jump out to a quick lead and finish with a 42-0 win over visiting Northern Lehigh.

Edmond finished the night with 207 yards passing and three touchdowns. Dalton Musselman led the Spartans in rushing with 62 yards. For Northern Lehigh, Joe Abidelli carried the ball seven times and rushed for a total of 32 yards, all in the fourth quarter.

After Northern Lehigh went three-and-out on the opening drive of the game, Dalton Musselman took a handoff from Edmond and rushed 40 yards down the right side of the field with J.D. Frederick adding the extra point to put Southern Lehigh up 7-0.

Southern Lehigh’s second drive was very different from the first in that they ran 11 plays to go 77 yards. Drew Sofranko picked up his first three carries of the season to cap the drive, going in from two-yards out. Southern Lehigh went for the two-point conversion and Justin Koser pulled in a pass from Edmond to put Southern Lehigh up 15-0.

The next two drives were quickies, with Edmond hitting Trey Trevis on a perfectly executed flea-flicker for a 78-yard strike. Edmond then struck on the first play of the next drive as well when he hit Cam Fisher down the middle of the field for 35 yards to make it 29-0.

“Those quick drives were tough,” said Northern Lehigh coach Joe Toth. “Not only do they demoralize you, but our defense was on the field a lot and it made things tough right out of the chute.”

The Spartans took over at their own 49 on their next trip down the field and covered the 51 yards in seven plays to go up 35-0 with 5:24 left before half-time.

The Bulldogs looked for a strike late in the first half and moved the ball from their own 30 to the Spartans nine-yard line but a big tackle by Fisher stalled the drive. On fourth-and-one, the clock ran out on the first half of play prior to the Bulldogs being able to snap the ball.

“We tried to get to the edge, but they were able to close that off,” said Toth of the tough Southern Lehigh defense, which seemed to swarm toward the ball carrier on most plays.

“They didn’t really do anything that we didn’t expect, but they also didn’t make any mistakes like we had seen on films. They just played a really good, tough game.”

As Southern Lehigh looked to put together another drive in the third quarter, Edmond unloaded a pass that Zack Moyer made a leaping grab to intercept and pull down at the Bulldogs’ 45-yard line. Northern Lehigh used all four downs but weren’t able to threaten and turned the ball over on downs to Southern Lehigh. The Spartans used 13 plays to move down to the Bulldogs’ six-yard line only to have a 23-yard field goal attempt by J.D. Frederick sail just left of the upright.

Northern Lehigh looked to cash in on the miscue, but after taking a hard hit, Abidelli coughed up the ball and the Spartans’ Michael Bodner scooped up the ball and ran 37 yards into the end zone to cap the scoring.

WELL BEHAVED BOYS ... Last week, the Bulldogs went unpenalized in their 42-14 loss at Saucon Valley. This week, they were penalized just once for a false start on their second possession of the game. It’s especially impressive since Northern Lehigh uses a number of young players who aren’t used to playing at the varsity level. Southern Lehigh was penalized three times for a total of 30 yards.

SHARP DRESSED MEN ... For the first time ever, the Spartans were wearing black pants to go with their home black jerseys. The pants were the top request of the players when asked what they wanted the booster club to purchase for the team. In the past, the Spartans went with white pants with the black jerseys.