If you’re an Army or Navy fan, your season hinges on what you do against the other team in the classic rivalry. Same for Lehigh and Lafayette.

Your team can have the best of seasons, but it’s all for naught if you lose to your perennial rival. Much is the same for the Northwestern and Northern Lehigh rivalry, which has its annual installment this Friday night at Tiger Stadium.

This year’s edition is even more special for the Northwestern seniors, as they look to become the first class in a long time to win the rivalry in all four years of their high school career.

“That hasn’t been done for at least 15 years,” said coach Josh Snyder. “We’ve talked about it some in practice this week, and how much it means to our seniors and to the program as a whole. Plus, it’s possibly the last home game for these guys, so I think there’s even more motivation there.”

The distraction of a rivalry game is a good one for a Northwestern team coming off back-to-back losses since they finished the 2012 season with a four-game losing streak. Bangor and Southern Lehigh both used big second-half performances to pick up wins and the Tigers need to find a way to avoid that from happeing again.

“I don’t know what it is, but we just don’t seem to have that killer instinct late in games,” Snyder said. “Against Southern Lehigh, I didn’t sense that our guys started to sense anything bad happening when they got that first touchdown to go up six, but after a while, you start to realize that it’s happening again.”

Northwestern added two more injuries to its list against the Spartans when both Caleb Clymer and Phil Dangello wound up on the sidelines on crutches.

“Neither of them have practiced or even been cleared to practice, so we don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Snyder. “It’s likely that we won’t know until late in the week if they’re able to go or not.

“It could come down to a game-time decision. It’s unfortunate for those guys, but in the end, you have to be safe and make the decision that’s best for them physically.”

One area that Northern Lehigh has struggled in this season is holding onto the football. They’re minus-nine in takeaways, having turned the ball over 22 times this season, with 15 of the giveaways coming on fumbles.

“We look to take advantage of those things said Snyder. “Our guys swarm to the ball and a lot of times that’s when turnovers happen and our guys know to be alert because if you can take the football away from the other team, that’s big for momentum and can really change a game.”

After getting over early-season duldrums where his team couldn’t seem to get going early in a game to now facing late game woes, Snyder is hoping that his team can give him a full, complete game effort against the Bulldogs.

“We haven’t had a whole lot of games where we’ve gotten off to a fast start and just kept our foot on the gas for a full 48-minutes,” he said. “It would be nice to get that sort of effort against these guys, because that’s what it takes to win games and we’d like to get this one.”

The game, known as Bo and Brett’s Mountain Road Rumble, named after former Northern Lehigh quarterback Bo Tkach, who took his own life after a battle with depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and former Northwestern running back Brett Snyder, who is battling ALS. Mountain Road is the main connecting road between the two schools.

In addition to the rivalry between the two schools, the background between Bo Tkach and Brett Snyder adds to the tradition and makes the game even more personal for coach Snyder, Brett’s brother.

“Personally, I’m very connected to the rivalry, because I played in it, my brother played in it and the history of Bo and Brett,” said Josh Snyder. “It all makes it that much more special. I, of course, went to Northwestern, but my wife and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law went to Northern Lehigh.

“We all live in the Northwestern district now, so it’s something special.”