Northern Lehigh outscored Southern Lehigh in the second half on Friday night, but the issue for the Bulldogs was that the Spartans held a 21-0 halftime lead that proved to be too much to overcome.

NL tried to climb back into the game in the final minutes, but couldn’t get past the early deficit in a 35-22 loss to Solehi in a Colonial League football game at Bulldog Community Stadium.

“Our Achilles [Heel] has been our mistakes,” NL head coach Joe Tout said after addressing his team following Friday’s loss. “And we still did that tonight. We didn’t [have them] in the second half and that was a big factor that allowed us to come back into the game. We just can’t turn the football over.”

The Bulldogs did cough the ball up in the contest as they threw two interceptions and lost one fumble. The Spartans took advantage of those miscues and turned them into points and a 21-0 lead at the break.

All three of those scores for Solehi came in the second quarter as neither team got on the scoreboard in the opening period. Northern Lehigh’s first possession, the opening drive of the game, ate up over eight minutes, but the Bulldogs were held scoreless.

In the second quarter, Asher Smith started to shine for Southern Lehigh. The senior scored two touchdowns in the quarter and also intercepted a NL pass that started the short drive that resulted in his second score. He finished with 151 rushing yards and four rushing touchdowns to go along with two interceptions on the defensive side.

“For them, their offense was what we knew they were,” Tout said about Southern Lehigh’s rushing attack. “They have those stable of big backs, [Smith] is their guy, and they want to grind and they did that.”

Despite trailing 21-0 at the half, Northern Lehigh battled back in the final two quarters to threaten the Spartans’ lead. Following another Smith score, which pushed it to 28-0, Mike Repsher scored for Northern Lehigh on a 3-yard rush where he snuck inside the pylon. That trip to the end zone made it 28-7 with 4:17 left in the third.

Repsher finished with 81 rushing yards to lead NL, and he also had 46 passing yards.

The Bulldogs’ special teams also helped the comeback cause as they blocked Southern Lehigh’s punt on their next possession, which the offense then turned into another touchdown. Zach Moyer connected with Matt Frame on a 23-yard pass for the score to cut the lead to 28-14 with 11:52 left in the game.

The Spartans slammed the door on the contest after that. Solehi drained most of the fourth-quarter clock and capped off the drive with a 3-yard rushing score by Smith, which made it 35-14 with 4:22 left.

Northern Lehigh tacked on a final touchdown and two-point conversion with a Joe Abidelli 3-yard scamper.

“This group has heart. They fight. We are a good team, but we just have to stop the mistakes,” Tout said. “We have a lot to build on. If we clean up the mistakes, we can beat anyone in the league. After tonight, I am more adamant about that than before.”

NO PUNTS, NO PROBLEM ... Northern Lehigh managed to block a Southern Lehigh punt, but the Bulldogs’ punt team never saw the field as NL did not punt once in Friday’s game. NL went 2-for-4 on fourth-down conversion attempts.

UNBEATEN … The victory for Southern Lehigh moved them to 6-0 this year, the last remaining undefeated team in the Colonial League.

COMING ATTRACTION … Next for Northern Lehigh is a road contest at Salisbury next week, a 4-2 team who won its last two games, including a thrilling victory over Notre Dame Green Pond two weeks ago.