It was an explosive night for Southern Lehigh in the run game against Tamaqua on Friday night.

The Spartans scored four rushing touchdowns all over 25-plus yards on their way to a 49-6 victory over the Blue Raiders.

The Southern Lehigh offense started the game with a miscue throwing an interception on its opening drive. Tamaqua’s Brady McCabe made a great play on the throw along the right sideline and came down with the ball to mount early momentum for the Raiders.

The Spartans, though, would force a quick three-and-out on the sudden change and from that point on they were able to find success with both their rushing and passing attack. After the turnover, the Spartans scored quickly and on three consecutive possessions to lead 20-0 at the 9:03 mark of the second quarter.

A 27-yard leg-churning run by Sean Steckert, a 25-yard pitch-and-catch from Colton Sams to Jacoby Jacobs, and a 64-yard punt return sprint down the right sideline from Darius Roman accounted for the scores.

Steckert, who came into the game with 1,299 yards rushing, averaging eight yards per carry with 18 touchdowns, got the Spartans’ run game going, ripping off a few big runs in the first.

“We have a big and strong line and a good line and obviously a really good running back,” said Southern Lehigh head coach Phil Sams. “But we were definitely clicking tonight. All year long, we’ve been able to run the ball very well and we’ve been balanced, because we’ve been able to throw the ball well, too. It was good to see the guys come out and execute tonight.”

The Raiders did have a chance to make this matchup a ball game right before the half. Tamaqua put together a grinding 15-play drive that started at its own 19, taking the ball all the way down to the Southern Lehigh 14. A 14-yard run from Malachi Stewart and a 16-yard connection between Chase Serfass and Camden Walker were key plays that spurred the drive.

But on a second and six play from the 14, the Raiders would cough up the ball, which was recovered by the Spartans with 35 seconds remaining in the first half.

“We put together a really good drive there right before the end of the first half, but unfortunately we fumble it and we don’t get any points. We also had two holding penalties on two big plays in the first half. Against a team as good as Southern Lehigh you can’t make those kind of mistakes,” said Tamaqua head coach Sam Bonner. “If you want to hang in the game and be competitive with a team like that, you just can’t make those mistakes.

“We knew their running game was going to be tough to handle. The punt return touchdown for them was huge as well. We had some flashes, but unfortunately we weren’t able to do enough to keep it interesting.”

The Spartans received the second half kick and then went right to work again on the offensive end. A nice return from Otto Young setup the Southern Lehigh offense at the Tamaqua 38 and four plays later Sams found Jacobs again, this time from 16 yards out on a nice throwback pass. The Spartans added one more score in the third to put the game into the mercy rule after a 47-yard Steckert run around the left side to extend their advantage to 35-0.

“Tamaqua is a tough team. They’re a very well coached team. I just thought we played very well tonight,” said Sams. “Coming in we knew they had a really good back. We keyed on him and brought in some of our bigger guys on some of their formations where we thought he was going to run the ball and our guys made plays.”

BIG PLAY RUN GAME … Southern Lehigh rushed for 275 yards on just 15 carries at an impressive 18.3 yards per carry. Steckert rushed for 135 yards and two touchdowns on just eight carries.

1,000 … Sophomore Terrence McDowell was held in check in this one rushing for just 25 yards, but he did surpass the 1,000-yard mark on his third carry of the game. He now has 1,020 rushing yards on the season.

WHERE THEY STAND … Southern Lehigh improves to 7-0 and Tamaqua drops to 3-4.

So. Lehigh 49, Tamaqua 6

So. Lehigh 14 6 15 14 - 49

Tamaqua 0 0 0 6 - 6

SL - Steckert 27 run (Walsh kick)

SL - Jacobs 25 pass from Sams (Walsh kick)

SL - Roman 64 punt return (kick failed)

SL - Jacobs 16 pass from Sams (Steckert run)

SL - Steckert 47 run (Walsh kick)

SL - Stock 43 run (Martin kick)

T - Stewart 10 run (run failed)

SL - Kiprislis 40 run (Martin kick)