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Northwestern Lehigh vanquishes Crusaders, Captures 4th consecutive District XI Crown.

Tagged under: District 11, Gameday Hub, News, pfn, Playoffs

| November 15, 2025

Catasauqua-

Northwestern sticks to their guns, pounds the rock, and plays lights out defense in the 2nd half en-route to a 35-14 victory over Notre Dame Green Pond.

Notre Dame won the toss and elected to defer their decision to the 2nd half.  With that, Northwestern chose to receive the opening kick and Tiger offense immediately went to work.  A whole slew of Tigers got touches on the opening drive including Braxton Lakatosh who was able to break a big run during the drive, taking the Northwestern offense in to the red zone.  A few plays later, the Tigers’ quarterback Shane Leh found Shane Hulmes over the middle setting up the Tigers inside the Notre Dame 5 yard-line.  The Tigers went right back to Hulmes on the next play as he took the direct snap and bulldozed his way in to the end-zone to open the scoring.  With 8:51 left in the first quarter the Tigers led the Crusaders 7-0.

Continuing on in to the opening stanza, both defenses forced respective punts, Notre Dame got on the board on their 2nd possession of the evening thanks in large part to a connection underneath from  Matt Bodnar to Tommy Murphy. Murphy caught the pass, made a few defenders miss and then with the help seemingly the entire offense pushed a pile of humanity another 10 yards down to the Northwestern 5 yard-line.  Two plays later Notre Dame’s Jonathan Striba took the direct snap, faked the handoff, and found room up the middle from 5 yards out to tie the game at 7 a piece on the very first play of the 2nd quarter.

The ensuing Northwestern drive saw them start with fantastic field position at the Notre Dame 47 yard-line thanks to a great kick-off return.  Keeping the ball on the ground, they Tiger offense made quick work of the Crusaders’ defense this possession as it only took the Tigers 4 plays to find the end-zone.  This time, it was Chase Sukanick form 11 yards out around the outside to give the lead back to Northwestern with 9:34 left until half.

The following Crusader drive was a roller coaster for the Tigers’ Mason Bollinger as early in the drive he had a Bodnar pass almost intercepted, but it tipped of his hands and right in to the waiting arms of the Crusaders Alex Clark for a Notre Dame first down.  However, a few plays later on a Bodnar scramble, Northwestern’s Ethan Steigerwalt punched the ball loose from Bodnar’s grasp and Bollinger was Johnny-on-the-spot and recovered the loose ball for the Tigers.  The Crusader defense stood tall, and taking a huge risk, Josh Snyder and Northwestern went for it on 4th down deep in their own territory and they were stopped for a loss in the backfield giving the Crusaders the ball right back at the Northwestern 18 yard-line.  Looking to help out their offense, the Northwestern defense made a big stand of their own, stopping the Crusaders on a fourth down of their own and keeping them out of the end-zone.

On the Tigers’ ensuing possession, Leh looked to get in on the action as he found Brady Zimmerman with an absolute dime of a pass on a go route down the far sideline for a 35 yard connection to get the Tigers in to Crusader territory.


A few plays later, Leh called his own number found an opening around the outside, cut across the field, and rumbled 30 yards for a touchdown, extending the Tiger lead to 14, 21-7 with just 1:04 left in the first half.

In to the second half, Notre Dame and Northwestern traded first possession punts on their respective drives.  On their 2nd possession of the half, the Crusaders Bodnar picked apart the Northwestern defense through the air including a fantastic toe-tap grab by Drew Boyd which set up the Crusaders deep in Northwestern territory.  Only 3 plays later, and Notre Dame’s Jonathan Striba found room on the ground from 2 yards out to pull the Crusaders within one score, 21-14 with 1:57 remaining in the 3rd quarter.

In to the fourth quarter, and Northwestern began to put the clamps on the Notre Dame offense, only allowing them 9 offensive plays the entire quarter.  The Tiger offense went on a clock draining 9 play scoring drive capped off by a 2 yard Shane Hulmes plunge to extend the Northwestern lead back to 14, 28-14, with 5:47 remaining in the game.

The following Crusader drive was abruptly ended early on as Brady Zimmerman dove to intercept an errant Bodnar pass to set up the Northwestern offense just outside the Notre Dame 20 yard line.  Two plays later, the Tigers’ Mason Bollinger found room up the middle of the Crusader defense, broke a tackle, and rumbled 19 yards for the touchdown.  With 4:39 remaining, the score was now 35-14 Tigers.

To really put the game on ice, Leh helped is own cause as he picked off a late desperation heave by Bodnar to end the late scoring threat from the Crusaders with 2:43 remaining in the game.

The Tiger offense took the field and picked up the requisite first downs to run out the clock and punch their ticket to the first round of the state playoffs next week vs Scranton Prep(8-5) who defeated Mifflinburg (10-3) 28-21 this evening.  With the loss, Notre Dame’s season comes to a close with a record of 12-1.

After the game and championship celebrations, I was able to track down Northwestern’s Shane Hulmes and head coach Josh Snyder for some post game thoughts.

STATS

Rushing:

Northwestern Lehigh

Braxton Lakatosh 12-93; Chase Sukanick 15-82, TD; Mason Bollinger 8-66, TD; Brady Zimmerman 5-1; Shane Leh 3-33, TD; Shane Hulmes 2-3, 2 TDs

Notre Dame-GP

Jonathan Striba 5-16, 2 TDs; Aaron Gordon 4-11; Matt Bodnar 9-(-11); Tommy Murphy 6-27; Jason Frederick 2-13; Faustie Capobianco 3-24.

Passing:

Northwestern Lehigh

Leh 5-10-0, 80 yards; Bollinger 1-1-0, 6 yards

Notre Dame-GP

Bodnar 15-25-2, 202 yards.

Receiving:

Northwestern Lehigh

Zimmerman 2-47; Hulmes 2-25; Michael Lagowy 1-8; Leh 1-6

Notre Dame-GP

Striba 1-4; Gordon 2-20; Alex Clark 1-11; Drew Boyd 8-103.

 

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