Northern Lehigh made just one halftime adjustment in last Saturday’s District 11 Class 2A championship against Palmerton.

The adjustment wasn’t fancy, nor was it complicated.

Bulldog coach Joe Tout made the decision to just simply line up and pound the football.

The result was a 30-point victory, and a stretch in the second half that saw the Bulldogs score on five straight possessions to blow the game open.

Oh, and running back Matt Frame also rushed for 334 yards and helped the Northern Lehigh offense accumulate 514 yards of total offense.

“The weather got real crazy there before the end of the first half and it got extremely windy. We tried to take a few shots at them deep, and the ball just got hung up in the wind. So, when we went into the half, I just said ‘we’re not going to get cute here,’” said Tout. “We went to our full house set and we were able to have success on both sides of the line. That style of football is still our bread and butter, and we executed well there in it in the second half.”

The Bulldogs have been able to execute all season long in large part due to their talent at the skill spots, as well as their exceptional team speed. But Northern Lehigh’s offensive line has been the story as of late. The Dawgs big boys up front have improved every single week, and over the past five or six weeks have dominated in the trenches.

Jackson Van Norman, Jayden Krempasky, Ethan Karpowich, Sam Frame, Lucas Farmer, Austin Smyth and Jack Tosh have been a unit that has played physical, and has consistently pushed opposing defenses off the line of scrimmage.

“This is a group that is playing great right now. You can see the conditioning is there, the physicality is there and the toughness is there. It’s been a big reason for our success this season,” said Tout. “The offensive line came up huge last week when we went to the full house backfield. They picked up their assignments and opened up holes and that’s with eight or nine guys in the box and guys blitzing. That’s the type of grind it out performance and effort a head coach can be proud of seeing your offensive line play like that.”

The Bulldogs will face a totally different opponent this week in Lackawanna Trail in the first round of the PIAA Class 2A state tournament. The Lions defeated Dunmore, 14-10, to win the District 2 Class 2A championship, which was their third district title victory in the last four seasons.

Lackawanna Trail will bring a challenging offensive scheme to Slatington on Friday in the wing-T. The Lions don’t look to air it our much (they averaged just four passing attempts per game), but they will look to run it and run time off the clock. That will no doubt be the game plan against an explosive Northern Lehigh offense that is averaging 392 yards of total offense per game and 38.8 points per game.

Kody Kreswell leads the Lions with 1,079 yards rushing and 13 touchdowns. Hunter Patterson is also a threat from the wing-T formation, as he’s rushed for 805 yards and 11 scores, and Lukas Gumble has also had a nice season, rushing for 477 yards and seven touchdowns.

“I know their coach very well. This is a well-coached team, they’re a physical team and they’re a fundamental team,” said Tout. “We can’t let them string together a bunch of clock-chewing drives against us. You have to try to get a lead on them and then make them play from behind and force them to throw it a little more than they would like. So, we just need to keep playing a physical brand of defensive football and make plays to get off the field.”