Northwestern relied on a conservative, run the ball down the opponent’s throat offense during the first half of the season.

That certainly hasn’t been the case lately.

Instead, it has turned into Tiger Airlines behind junior quarterback Deven Bollinger.

Friday night, Bollinger threw for 251 yards in a 35-7 win over Northern Lehigh. The win in the annual rivalry game keeps the Mountain Road Rumble trophy in coach Josh Snyder’s classroom for another year.

After not throwing for more than 124 yards during any of the first five games of the season, the Tigers have now thrown for at least 195 yards in each of the last four games.

“Earlier in the year, we showed that we can just run the ball,” explained Snyder. “But lately, teams are taking that away from us by putting extra guys in the box and tonight they had a linebacker walking into the box, so we weren’t going to run into that. With the emergence of our receivers, we can break out of our normal run game and go a different way.”

On Senior Night at Tigers Stadium, it was senior Ryan Haas who had a big night for the Tigers (7-2). Haas recovered a fumble on Northern Lehigh’s first drive of the game, which led to Northwestern’s first score when the offensive line gave Bollinger an eternity to throw the ball and he found Tyler Lobach wide open in the end zone.

Later in the game, Haas picked off a Gage Hunsicker pass in the end zone, killing Northern Lehigh’s longest drive of the night. Lobach, also a senior, recovered a fumble later in the game and Carson Steigerwalt pulled in an interception on Northern Lehigh’s final possession of the night.

“He’s an unselfish guy and with the emergence of a couple of other pieces, he hasn’t been at the forefront of things, but he leads the team in interceptions and always seems to be around the ball,” said Snyder. “He had a huge hit on our sideline on one of their kids and he gave us momentum a couple of different times. He’s a guy that does a lot of the little things for us and goes unnoticed.”

The Bulldogs (4-5) had an early penalty and the fumble on the first possession and never really were able to get on track. They made more mistakes that hurt them throughout the game to interrupt drives at crucial moments.

“When stuff goes bad, our kids don’t unite after that, we pick on and complain, and that’s on me,” said Bulldogs coach Joe Tout. “We just did a lot of things that you can’t do week nine against a good team and expect to win a game. We had some opportunities but we made mistakes and that was what took it from us being in the game to having a debacle.”

A Northern Lehigh unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Northwestern’s second possession extended the drive and helped the Tigers get into the end zone to open up a 14-0 lead.

The Tigers scored on their third straight drive when Bollinger hit Nick Henry, who broke a number of tackles in his battle to the end zone for a 20-yard touchdown pass to go up 21-0.

Northwestern made it four touchdowns in four possessions after Lobach’s fumble recovery led to a five-play, 44-yard drive capped by a three-yard run by Lobach.

Henry added a 10-yard TD run midway through the third quarter to make it 35-0

Northern Lehigh finally found the end zone later in the third quarter, going 70 yards in seven plays with Dale Wanamaker dashing over from 10 yards out.

SENIOR NIGHT IN TIGERTOWN ... Senior members of the football team, cheerleaders and the marching band were saluted prior to the game. Snyder credits the senior group with leaving the program in good shape.

“They’ve really played well and they’ve also been huge in helping guys like Deven [Bollinger] to develop as players,” said Snyder. “It’s nice when you have a group of players who you have a good relationship with both on the field and off and great to see them succeed as athletes and students.”

IT WAS WORTH A SHOT ... Senior lineman Hayden Bobbyn lined up as a running back with the Tigers at the Bulldogs one-yard line and a 7-0 lead. Bobbyn took the handoff and looked to push his way into the end zone but wound up being pushed back a yard. Bollinger showed him how to do that play on the next snap when he went straight ahead from the two and made it 14-0.

WE’RE TALKING PLAYOFFS? ... With the win, Northwestern will likely host a District 11 playoff game at Tiger Stadium in two weeks. They need a win over Catasauqua next week to cement the odds of playing at home at least one more time this season.