Northampton's football team dropped their second straight contest of the season to one of the East Penn Conference's elite, falling to Easton 35-7 last week.

The Rovers built a 35-0 lead into halftime to put the game in cruise control for the final 24 minutes, as Easton running back Shane Simpson ran for 143 yards and two touchdowns, to go along with two receptions for 37 yards and a score.

Northampton has been overmatched in their past two contests, losing to Parkland and Easton by a combined 84-7.

"Parkland and Easton are two elite programs," said Northampton head coach Mark Scisly. "Both teams have tremendous team speed that we just can't match right now."

One thing the Kids weren't able to do at all last week was throw the ball against Easton. Quarterback Cory Croll was 0-for-8 with two interceptions.

Managing only 138 yards of offense, all of which came from the ground, is not a good sign for the Kids (1-2), who travel to Bethlehem Friday night to take on a rejuvenated Freedom (3-0) program.

The Patriots knocked around Emmaus last week to the tune of 35-14, scoring 21 unanswered points in the second half to pull away for the easy win.

With Freedom looking to go to 4-0 after this week, Scisly will have his hands full dealing with the Pates physical front, which helped churn out four rushing touchdowns on the ground last week.

"They run the ball seventy percent of the time, so we need to stop the run first," Scisly said. "I think we match up well with them up front. We need to be more consistent with our assignments and do a better job sustaining our blocks."

Still, after defeating Allen in week one, the Kids now enter their third straight opponent who comes in with an undefeated mark.

It's a tough sell for a program that enters this week as a heavy underdog again, but Scisly just wants to focus on the basics.

"I'll see how the guys respond in practice this week," he said. "We just have to be more consistent getting our assignments."