It wasn’t the fast start that Northwestern may have been hoping for, but the finish more than made up for it.

Northwestern christened the new artificial turf at Tiger Stadium with a 38-17 victory over Salisbury on Thursday night.

The key to the night was the Deven Bollinger to Justin Rodda connection that resulted in four touchdown passes. The scores varied in length from nine yards to 26 yards as Rodda finished with 75 yards receiving and Bollinger was credited with 163 yards passing and five touchdowns.

“Rodda’s been banged up,” explained coach Josh Snyder. “He had a hamstring injury in the spring and then tweaked it a little bit leading up to the season and he didn’t get to practice a whole lot. We were able to get on him pretty good in practice this week and he played really well tonight.”

Northwestern (1-1) got on the board first when punter Aaron Kahn attempted to punt from the end zone, but his knee touched the ground when he attempted to field a bad snap, resulting in a safety.

Salisbury (1-1) quickly recovered and put a 30-yard field goal from Kahn on the board for a 3-2 lead early in the second quarter.

With starting quarterback Trey Weber knocked out of the game with an injury, backup Quintin Stephens took the reins and maneuvered the Salisbury offense without missing a beat. The junior quarterback threw for two touchdowns and amassed 257 yards in passing on the night. His longest strike was a 76-yard connection to Chad Parton that cut the Tigers lead to 16-10 with 2:11 left in the first half.

Northwestern took the opening kick-off of the second half and needed just four plays to go 53 yards, with Rodda pulling in his third TD pass of the night. Bollinger then pushed through the line for the two-point conversion and the Tigers were up 24-10.

“Deven and I have always worked well together and he made some big passes tonight that made it pretty easy,” said Rodda of his big night.

On their next possession, Bollinger decided to spread the wealth a little and hit Henry out of the backfield on two key passes. The first was a 13-yard completion for a first down and the second was for 47 yards into the end zone.

The defense for Northwestern looked to clamp down on Stephens and the Falcon offense in the second half. While Salisbury still moved the ball at times, Northwestern kept them off the board in the third quarter.

The teams would trade fourth quarter touchdown passes, with Stephens hitting Parton on a 12-yard strike and Bollinger finding Rodda in the end zone for a fourth time on a 14-yard completion.

“This was definitely a huge boost, coming off of a loss and then to win is definitely a big confidence builder,” said Rodda.

YOU CAN’T DO THAT, OR THAT, OR ... Salisbury was its own worst enemy, being flagged for 15 penalties and 120 yards. The majority of the penalties were illegal procedure calls, which may have been prompted by the change in QB. Weber went down on the fourth play of the game.

THEY WERE THE CHAMPIONS ... The 1995 Northwestern team that won a district title was celebrated in a ceremony prior to the game. The celebration was done a year prior to the 25th anniversary to coincide with the remembrance of teammate Brett Snyder, who passed away this spring. Four coaches, including head coach Bob Mitchell, and 20 players were on hand for the introductions. The ‘95 team was the first to play games under the lights at home, shifting from Saturday afternoons to Friday nights.