All gas and no brakes.

Whether it’s on offense, defense or special teams … Northwestern plays the game of football fast.

The Tigers put the pedal all the way down to the floor board against rival Northern Lehigh on Thursday night, racing out to a 20-7 first quarter lead, and they kept the hammer down, defeating the Bulldogs 56-13.

“I think it always comes down to how hard are your kids going to play. We play with speed and we play with aggression, and a lot of times that makes the difference,” said Northwestern head coach Josh Snyder.

“I thought we used our speed and our physicality to make them work for every yard, and to me that’s a tell tale sign of a good football team.”

Big plays were the storyline of the first quarter. After forcing a quick three and out, Northwestern went to work on offense to quickly take a 6-0 lead.

A 32-yard hookup between Shane Leh and Michael Lagowy put the Tigers at the NL five, and a few plays later Mason Bollinger dove into the end zone.

Northern Lehigh then created some momentum, if only for a short time.

The Bulldogs actually took the lead at the 3:18 mark of the first. Northern Lehigh’s Keith Lectora read a crossing route over the middle and intercepted a Northwestern pass, returning it to the NW 15. Five plays later, Chris Frame scored from one yard out to make it a 7-6 Bulldogs’ advantage.

But for the Tigers, if there is a Zimmerman, there is a way.

Northwestern’s Brady Zimmerman received the ensuing kickoff at the 10-yard line, making one man miss and exploding down the right sideline for a 90-yard score, snatching the momentum back from the host team.

The Tigers tacked another score right before the end of the first with a Shane Hulmes short rush, which was set up by a Braxton Lakatosh 68-yard run to make it 20-7.

“I have to give kudos to all of the blockers on that kickoff return. They opened up a hole. I saw some daylight and I just went,” said Zimmerman. “We needed that one to get the momentum back. They were able to punch one in early on us and take the lead. But we didn’t sweat it. It’s all about the next play and we made it count.

“And then, defensively we went to work after that. We all did our jobs and played sound assignment football.”

The second quarter is where the Tigers pulled away for good, outscoring the Bulldogs 29-6. Three turnovers in the second led to three Northwestern touchdowns.

Sophomore running back Chase Sukanick got hot for the Tigers in the second, scoring on runs of 33 and 42 yards, which extended the Northwestern lead to 34-7.

Northern Lehigh was able to put together its best drive of the night after Sukanick’s second score, going 11 plays and 77 yards — capped off by a 25-yard strike from Garrett Smoyer to Colin Karetsky at the right pylon to cut the deficit to 21.

Northwestern, though, scored back-to-back touchdowns with under a minute to go in the half.

The Tigers quickly went 75 yards in just six plays in their two-minute offense with Lakatosh taking it in from 15 yards out to make it 42-13 with 57 seconds remaining. Then, with just one second left in the half, Bollinger made the play of the game on the defensive side.

Northern Lehigh gave itself a chance to score right before the half with a 49-yard hookup over the middle between Smoyer and Chase Gall that got the ball down to the 15. The Bulldogs had one second to work with and their pass over the middle at the goal line was intercepted by Bollinger, who quickly bounced it outside to the right sideline where he had a convoy of blockers in front. He took it the distance — 100 yards — for the pick six to make it 49-13 at the break.

“Two things stood out,” said Northern Lehigh head coach Joe Tout. “The kickoff return for a touchdown when we were able to get some momentum there early in the first and then the pick six at the end of the half. And I’ll take responsibility for that. I wasn’t crazy about the route combo when we called it.

“They were doubling Frame all night on the outside, so we tried to get the ball into the middle. We thought that would maybe pop. Looking back we probably should’ve just stayed with the outside guys and the odds for a pick six there isn’t as great.

“And then they just killed us on the counter all night. They never ran speed or toss off the motion, and they saw our guys weren’t being disciplined and they executed. But there were a lot of positives in the game for us as well. We told our guys. We need to learn from this and put it to bed. Because we know we have a good football team.”

Lakatosh put the exclamation point on the win with yet another counter play on the Tigers first possession of the second half, bursting 42 yards up the middle for his second rushing score of the night.

“As long as I’m the football coach at Northwestern, we’re going to run the football first and foremost,” said Snyder. “Everything we do is predicated on the fact that we can run the football. Now, we try to be smart in how we do it. And we found a play that worked for us tonight. I think we scored five or six touchdowns on two plays.

“I’m just really proud of these guys tonight. There were some ups and downs. But they handled the adversity well. They never panicked. They played great football in all three phases. And once we got that momentum back we never gave it up.”

LIGHTNING AND LIGHTNING … The Tigers may have found their new running back duo on Thursday night. Speedsters Lakatosh (138 yards) and Sukanick (75 yards) combined for 213 yards rushing and four rushing touchdowns. Lakatosh averaged 23 yards per carry on the night.

TURNOVER TOWN … Lagowy (interception), Michael Boring (forced fumble and fumble recovery) and Bollinger (interception) were responsible for creating the three NL turnovers in the second quarter.

UNDER PRESSURE … The Bulldogs passing attack was never able to get comfortable in the game as they were under constant attack. Hulmes led the way for the Tigers with two sacks.

N’western 56, No. Lehigh 13

Northwestern 20 29 7 0 - 56

No. Lehigh 7 6 0 0 - 13

NW - Bollinger 1 run (kick failed)

NL - Frame 1 run (Hanna kick)

NW - Zimmerman 90 kickoff return (Hulmes pass from Leh)

NW - Hulmes 1 run (run failed)

NW - Sukanick 33 run (kick failed)

NW - Sukanick 42 run (Zimmerman pass from Leh)

NL - Karetsky 25 pass from Smoyer (kick failed)

NW - Lakatosh 15 run (Hulmes run)

NW - Bollinger 100 nterception return (kick failed)

NW - Lakatosh 42 run (Sukanick kick)