With the offensive weapons Northwestern has, its defense can sometimes get overlooked.

Opposing teams, though, will be quick to tell you the Tigers may be as good — if not better — without the ball.

On Friday night, Northwestern’s defense not only pitched another shutout against Wilson but scored three times — two on interception returns and once on a sack, strip and fumble recovery.

The Tigers also registered a touchdown on special teams en route to a dominating 56-0 victory — their 40th consecutive regular season win.

“The defense is really good, and we’ve had really good defenses the last couple years,” said Northwestern head coach Josh Snyder, whose team improved to 8-0. “We pride ourselves on being really good against the run, and then also establishing the run on offense.

“They might not always get the credit or the headlines ... but you can see how hard these kids practice on just reading things on the fly. You could see the screen pass deflection, the strip sack; those are things that are studied and worked on in practice repeatedly, and for these kids to come out here and then execute them was awesome.”

Nolan Koehler was the first Tiger defender to reach the end zone when he intercepted a pass on Wilson’s first possession of the game and raced 20 yards to the end zone to give the home team a quick 14-0 lead.

“Chase (Sukanick) deflected it and I knew I had to grab it,” said Koehler. “I had an open look and just ran it in, and it felt great.

“Maybe (our defense gets) a little overlooked at times. But we always have each other’s back. If we make a mistake, we pick each other up.”

Northwestern’s D didn’t make any mistakes in the first half, holding the Warriors (1-7) to a mere six yards on 29 plays. Included among them were 10 that resulted in negative yardage and three turnovers.

The second of those turnovers was another pick-six as yet again a Tiger defender ended up celebrating a score.

Fritz Scheirer also snared a deflected pass and rumbled 25 yards to paydirt to make it 28-0 with 43 seconds still left in the open quarter. And then in the second quarter, Koehler applied pressure to Wilson quarterback Matthew Piparato, sacked and stripped the ball, and saw teammate Nick Whitney recover the loose ball in the end zone to up the margin to 42-0.

If things couldn’t get any worse for the visiting Warriors, just two minutes later Nate Apina scooped up a blocked punt and added another touchdown.

“The punt block, that was a return setup, but we have a couple force guys that force the punt and they shot right through and got that,” said Snyder. “It’s exciting. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a game in the first half, or really all game, have four linemen score. That’s always enjoyable, and I’m happy for the defense getting after it.

“They’ve been great all season for a large majority. We’ve given up a couple more explosive plays this year than we’ve liked, but for the majority of it minus those, we’ve been really stout against the run and really get after the passer.”

The only disadvantage to all the defensive tallies is the fact the Northwestern offense doesn’t get much playing time.

The offense did manage three scores in the opening half, one when Apina recovered a ball fumbled into the end zone. The other scores came on a 5-yard pass from Trey Snyder to Brady Zimmerman, and a 13-yard run by Sukanick.

“It is what it is, those things you can’t control,” said Snyder. “I think we ran only 16 or 17 offensive plays with our (first team) in the first half. We put a lot of things in this week to put on film, to make the other team next week think about. And we weren’t able to run quite all of them.

“The downside of (the defensive touchdowns and the mercy rule games) is now all of a sudden when you have to play a 50 or 60 offensive snap game, you’re not used to it. And there’s nothing like game reps and game experience. We practice extremely hard during the week best-on-best as much as we can, but Friday nights under the lights is a little bit different.”

SHOWDOWN ... Northwestern will meet undefeated Southern Lehigh on Friday. The two clubs have enjoyed a bit of a rivalry the past few seasons. The Tigers were state champs in 3A two years ago, while the Spartans won the PIAA title in 4A last season.

MULTIPLE PICK-SIXES ... The last time the Tigers had two interception returns for touchdowns in the same game was Oct. 17, 2014, by Harry Hall and Taylor Breininger.

Northwestern 56, Wilson 0

Wilson 0 0 0 0 - 0

N’western 28 21 0 7 - 56

NW - Apina fumble recovery in end zone (Snyder run)

NW - Koehler 20 interception return (kick failed)

NW - Zimmerman 5 pass from Snyder (Smith kick)

NW - Scheirer 25 interception return (Smith kick)

NW - Sukanick 13 run (Smith kick)

NW - Whitney recovers fumble in end zone (Smith kick)

NW - Apina 10 blocked punt return (Smith kick)

NW - Stringer 1 run (Smith kick)