The rough start to Northampton’s football season continued last Friday night, as the K-Kids dropped their fourth straight game to open the season following a 34-7 defeat to Freedom (3-1).

Freedom jumped out to a 34-0 lead through three quarters and never looked back, as Dashaun Peterson rushed for 156 yards and four touchdowns to pace Freedom to victory.

Northampton’s (0-4) lone score came in the fourth quarter when Jacob Passarella hauled in a 12 yard TD from Josh Smith to prevent the shutout.

While the first four games of the schedule should have been the lighter part of Northampton’s season, the Kids were outscored in those games by a 187-84 margin.

Now comes the task of hosting a 4-0 Emmaus team this Friday night, who have quickly become one of the top contenders for the East Penn Conference South title this season.

“They have tremendous speed at the running back position and Josh Artis is an outstanding receiver for them,” said Northampton head coach Mark Scisly. “We have to pressure the quarterback and mix up our coverages.”

The Green Hornets are coming off a 62-6 thrashing over Pocono Mountain West last week, where they collected 343 yards and eight touchdowns on the ground.

Sone Ntoh led the backfield with 148 yards and four TD’s in the romp.

The Emmaus defense has been stingy this season as well, giving up a shade over 14 points a game. They held PMW to 163 yards of total offense last week and will certainly look to continue their momentum this week on both sides of the ball.

“The front three in their 3-4 are active and can disrupt what teams are doing on offense,” said Scisly. “We need to get off the ball up front and play a physical football game.”

With the Kids being heavy underdogs again this week, the contest will be the beginning of a tough six game stretch to end the conference season, as the Kids have Nazareth (1-3), Liberty (3-1), Easton (2-2), Parkland (3-1) and Whitehall (2-2) to finish the year off.