It’s easy to look at a team’s record and make some assumptions about it. When one looks at Palmerton’s 1-4 record, it’s easy to assume this would be an easy week for Northwestern when it visits the Blue Bombers Friday night.

Look deeper though and some interesting things about Palmerton can be revealed, mainly the quality of competition that its had to play through the early going.

The teams that have handed the Bombers their four losses this season – Palisades, Southern Lehigh, Saucon Valley and Notre Dame - are a combined 15-5 on the season.

Last week, the Bombers traveled to Pen Argyl to take on the 2-2 Green Knights and handed them a 62-30 loss for their first win of the season.

“They’ve played a really tough early schedule,” said Northwestern head coach Josh Snyder. “I’m not sure anyone has had a tougher schedule than they have and they’ve really competed well and could have won a couple of those games. Their skill guys are as good as the skill guys that any team has.”

Running back Andrew Sabo ran for 122 yards and four touchdowns last week for Palmerton, but exited with an injury late in the game. It’s unknown whether he’ll be available against Northwestern. Palmerton has had three different players throw at least eight passes this season but senior Aaron Stasko has taken the reins of the offense.

Josh Snyder believes in playing a clean, mistake-free game of football. Because of that, he hasn’t been too happy lately with the penalties that his team has picked up in recent games, especially against Bangor in last week’s 29-21 win. Northwestern was penalized 47 times for 385 yards in the regular season last year and has 37 penalties for 305 yards already this season. It’s a trend that Snyder isn’t happy about.

“When we looked on tape and reviewed it with kids, they saw what they were doing,” he said. “We’re just harping on it that they’re just silly, preventable things like offsides. Some of the interference type things are guys trying to make a play and that happens.

“The holding, the jumping offsides, personal fouls, they’re just emotions getting out of control and we can’t do that.

“In practice, we have a pretty short leash on kids on those things and we’re stressing that to be a good football team and win some of the closer games, you don’t want those things to come back and bite you.”

Northwestern doesn’t figure to stray too far from its normal game plan against Palmerton. That plan consists of running the ball with running back Nick Henry and quarterback Deven Bollinger.

It’s a strategy that other teams have to know is coming, but they have a difficult time stopping the run game, which has seen either Henry or Bollinger – and at times, both – collect at least 100 yards rushing each week.

“Our line gets a lot of credit and deservedly so, but the skill guys really block for each other,” Snyder said. “Tyler Lobach is having an outstanding season on both sides of the ball and he’s at the point of attack probably 80 or 90 percent of the time when we run the ball. Even guys on the outside are doing a nice job of blocking and it’s really everybody across the board that’s doing their job.”

One of the things that has helped Northwestern is that its been able to stay relatively healthy.

With the exception of Henry missing the Wilson game with a bad shoulder, the Tigers haven’t had to work around injuries this season.

Snyder reports that they came through the game at Bangor in good shape physically and are at full strength for their game Friday in Palmerton.