The offensive statistics of Friday night’s contest showed Palmerton prevailing.

However, the scoreboard did not.

Against Southern Lehigh in Week 2 of the Colonial League season, the Blue Bombers showed improvement, yet six turnovers eventually cost them the decision, 33-14, dropping the team’s record to 0-2.

The Spartans (1-1) used a two-and-a-half minute stretch to turn a scoreless tie into a 20-0 swell in the first frame. Two of those early scores came by virtue of Palmerton miscues.

Senior quarterback Logan Edmond trounced in from eight yards out to get the scoring started, but on the Bombers’ ensuing possession, the first play saw the pigskin pop loose. Dalton Musselman scooped up the rock and raced 29 yards for another Spartan tally.

If things couldn’t get worse, the two sides traded punts and the hosts took the ball from their own 24, but a Lucas Heydt pass was picked off by Cameron Fisher, who toted it 33 yards for a 20-0 lead.

“Our secondary tonight played really well, I thought,” said Southern Lehigh head coach John Toman. “Cameron Fisher and Asher Smith did a great job covering their pass game. We knew Palmerton has some guys that can fly and we wanted to bottle them up as much as we could.”

Solehi’s defense did a decent job in that area of focus, but out of halftime the Blue Bombers responded to their halftime speech much better than in Week 1 and came out determined.

“I love the fight that our kids showed, down 20-0. Other times they may have folded, but they came back, fought, right down to almost taking the lead there,” Palmerton head coach Chris Walkowiak said.

On their first possession of the third frame, Heydt, Aaron Stasko and Andrew Sabo drove the Bombers 68 yards in 11 plays to cut it to 20-7.

The defenses stymied each other until the beginning of the fourth, where Palmerton used a lateral from Heydt to Sabo, who found a streaking Eli Rivera. The senior eluded tacklers several times for a 72-yard reception to make it 20-14 with 8:05 left.

“In big games, you have to make big plays and can’t make those mistakes that we made, but everything is fixable and sometimes a loss can be a good experience if you learn from it,” Walkowiak said. “Tonight, they took a step of growth to build off and go from there.”

Edmond connected with Musselman for the Spartans’ next score, and another interception return for six by Smith ballooned the edge to 33-14 with a little over six minutes left.

TRIPLE THREAT ... The Bombers’ ground attack saw an interesting point in the third frame when three different runners — Stasko, Sabo and Heydt — all amassed 48 yards with under a minute and a half remaining in the third.

MONOPOLIZING THE POSITION ... The Spartans have had a luxury from the Edmond family in the past 10 seasons, as one of the three Edmond brothers has held the starting quarterback position in nine of the last 10 years.

STRANGER THINGS ... The Blue Bombers had higher passing yardage, higher ground yards and more first downs than their opponent and dropped a 19-point decision.