Palmerton’s first six opponents couldn’t get to quarterback T.K. Gursky. Notre Dame Green Pond never let him up.

The Crusaders chased the Palmerton quarterback for minus-18 yards rushing, limited the Blue Bombers to 12 passing yards and turned Friday night’s meeting of District XI unbeatens into a 49-6 rout.

“Their defensive line and their speed,” Palmerton head coach Chris Walkowiak said of what gave his offense trouble. “Their speed really was giving us problems, and their physicality and their intensity coming out.”

Notre Dame quarterback Tommy Murphy completed 14 of 24 passes for 227 yards and three touchdowns without an interception, ran four times for 40 yards and scored the game’s first points on a 9-yard keeper that capped a six-play drive midway through the first quarter.

Jonathan Striba made it 14-0 with a 42-yard touchdown run on the Crusaders’ next possession and added a 10-yard score early in the second quarter. He finished with 57 yards on three carries.

From there the Crusaders scored on two straight possessions to close the half. Murphy hit Luca Luise for nine yards with 5:39 left, then found Drew Boyd from six yards out with 1:58 on the clock for a 35-0 halftime lead.

Notre Dame tallied 267 yards of offense in the first half to just 25 for the Bombers.

“We struggled moving the ball offensively and we gave up big plays defensively, and that’s something we talked about all week,” Walkowiak said. “We needed to move the ball. We needed to take time of possession and finish drives. We didn’t get that going. And then defensively we had some miscommunications, which led to some of the big plays.”

The biggest of them came early in the third quarter, when Murphy connected with Nyechay Lawless II for a 56-yard touchdown that pushed the lead to 42-0. Lawless caught five passes for 131 yards.

Jason Frederick’s 25-yard touchdown run with 10:25 left in the fourth quarter accounted for the final Crusader points. Notre Dame moves to 7-0 and finished with 384 total yards and 17 first downs without turning the ball over.

The Bombers, who had scored at least 24 points in every game this season and were averaging 42 per game, punted six times and never reached the Notre Dame red zone until the final minute. Gursky briefly left the game in the first quarter after being sandwiched by Crusader defenders on Palmerton’s third drive, and a 7-yard punt that followed handed Notre Dame the ball at the Bomber 26 — one of the few possessions the Crusaders failed to convert, throwing four straight incompletions.

Palmerton’s only sustained push came with the game long decided. Steele Zalik scored on a 2-yard run with a minute to play to break up the shutout.

“One game to me doesn’t define the season,” Walkowiak said. “We knew they were a formidable opponent, and they’re a very good football team as advertised. We talked about this all week: this is week seven. They’re not giving out any hardware in week seven.”

Walkowiak said his message afterward centered on what the Bombers still have in front of them at 6-1.

“I told them, hey, your goal is not to go undefeated. You want to play your best, and tonight we didn’t play our best, and credit to them,” he said.

“They were a measuring stick and we’re not right there where they’re at. We need to pick up our level of play.”

Northern Lehigh, which is 5-2 and coming off a 35-7 loss to Jim Thorpe, visits Palmerton next Friday.

“That’s a rivalry game and a homecoming game,” Walkowiak said. “So we’ve got to pick things up in a hurry.”

GROUNDED ... While Gursky completed 8 of 13 passing attempts Friday, the Bombers only gained 12 total yards through the air. His longest completion went for seven yards to running back Carson Eckhart.

MERCY ... The 35-0 halftime margin put the game into the mercy rule, and the two teams combined for just five offensive possessions in the second half.

AIR SHOW ... Seven different Crusaders caught a pass. Murphy’s 227 passing yards and three scoring strikes came against a Palmerton defense that had allowed just one touchdown over its previous two games.

Notre Dame GP 49, Palmerton 6

Notre Dame GP 14 21 7 7 - 49

Palmerton 0 0 0 6 - 6

ND - Murphy 9 run (Cintron kick)

ND - Striba 42 run (Cintron kick)

ND - Striba 10 run (Cintron kick)

ND - Luise 9 pass from Murphy (Cintron kick)

ND - Boyd 6 pass from Murphy (Cintron kick)

ND - Lawless II 56 pass from Murphy (Salaki kick)

ND - Frederick 25 run (Salaki kick)

P - Zalik 2 run (run failed)