It was a must-win situation for both Lehighton and Tamaqua going into its Schuylkill-Colonial League Division A game Friday night.

The regular season was down to three games, and each team needed to win this matchup to stay relevant in its respective District 11 playoff rankings.

Lehighton got the upper hand early by producing two quick first-quarter touchdowns.

That proved to be the difference in the end as the Indians were able to add two more scores and hold off a Blue Raider comeback attempt for a 25-16 victory over host Tamaqua.

The Indians went on top for good less than a minute into the game when they recovered a fumble on Tamaqua’s first offensive play. That led to a 25-yard scoring run by Lukas Croizier for a 7-0 lead with 11:02 left in the first quarter. Croizier rushed for 124 yards on 18 carries on the night.

“In last week’s game, we had the lead early, but we were not able to keep it,” Lehighton coach Tom McCarroll said. “They got the ball but they fumbled. We capitalized off the turnover right away.”

Lehighton was able to get a defensive stop on Tamaqua’s next offensive series, and its offense struck once again, with quarterback Jayse Lawrence taking a keeper up the middle for a 62-yard touchdown run and a 14-0 lead with 5:29 left in the first quarter.

The Indians could not produce any more offense in the first half, but that didn’t matter much because the defense stepped up to keep the Raiders off the scoreboard.

“We came back and scored again and we put them in chase mode,” McCarroll said. “With the nature of their offense, we figured if we can stay ahead of schedule, we can keep them behind schedule.”

Lehighton did just that as it produced a score on its first possession of the second half on a 5-yard scoring pass from Lawrence to Blake Roberts to up the lead to 20-0 with 9:38 remaining in the third quarter.

“When you fall behind by two touchdowns right off the bat makes it tough,” Tamaqua coach Sam Bonner said. “You hate to start a big game in the hole like that. We’re not the kind of offense that can produce a quick attack.”

The Raiders got on the board on their next possession by producing a 10-play, 49-yard drive that led to a 19-yard touchdown run by Terrence McDowell and a two-point conversion pass from Ace Schickram to Brady McCabe to cut the Lehighton lead to 20-8.

McDowell led the Raiders with 143 yards on 24 carries.

But Lehighton responded with a score of its own on its next possession, with Lawrence throwing a 14-yard scoring pass to Roberts to build the lead to 27-8 with 8:12 left in the game.

“We just went back to fundamentals to get our offense going,” Bonner said. “We did a good job making it a game in the second half.”

McDowell scored his second touchdown of the game with a 58-yard scoring run followed by a two-point conversion pass from quarterback Chase Serfass to Schickram to account for the final score.

UP NEXT … Lehighton hosts North Schuylkill on Friday before traveling to Jim Thorpe the following week. The Raiders end regular season play on the road with away games at Northwestern and Blue Mountain.

Lehighton 27, Tamaqua 16

Lehighton 14 0 6 7 - 27

Tamaqua 0 0 8 8 - 16

L - Croizier 20 run (Ebbert kick)

L - Lawrence 62 run (Ebbert kick)

L - Roberts 5 pass from Lawrence (run failed)

T - McDowell 19 run (McCabe pass from Schickram)

L - Roberts 14 pass from Lawrence (Ebbert kick)

T - McDowell 58 run (Schickram pass from Serfass)