The Northwestern football team opened the season with a 42-35 loss to Notre Dame. Since then, the Tigers have won eight straight games, including knocking off previously undefeated Southern Lehigh in week seven.

From that point on, Northwestern has been tied for the best record in the Colonial League with the Spartans and a win in the final week of the season guarantees at least a share of the league title.

If both Northwestern and Southern Lehigh win or lose in week 10, they would share the Colonial League championship.

A slip-up by either team could give the championship to the other if they finish their schedule with a win. Southern Lehigh hosts Salisbury (6-3), while the Tigers host Catasauqua (0-9).

Not only have the Rough Riders gone winless this season, but they haven’t been in many of their games. Their closest game of the season came in their season opener when they lost to Bangor 34-6. Since then they have been shutout four times and scored their first touchdown in four games last week against Southern Lehigh in a 62-7 loss.

“They’re a storied program and they’ve had some tough seasons, but you can never take a team lightly, said Northwestern head coach Josh Snyder. “They lost a lot of players to graduation at the skill positions and they’re a young team.”

Northwestern is coming off a stretch of games that were the toughest on their schedule, beginning with Southern Lehigh and then going up against Saucon Valley and rival Northern Lehigh last week.

The Tigers came through the stretch in good shape, but did get off to a slow start against the Bulldogs last week, trailing 17-0 at halftime.

Even though Catasauqua has struggled on both sides of the ball this season and comes in winless, the team has something to play for on two different fronts.

The Roughies finished last season with a 1-10 record and set a goal in camp to finish this season with more wins that they had in 2018.

The only way they can do that would be to beat Northwestern and then follow that up with a Thanksgiving Day win over Northampton.

Catty will also be looking to play the role of spoiler, attempting to keep Northwestern from gaining at least a share of the Colonial League title.

“I’m sure that even with all of the struggles they’ve had this year, it would make their season to come in here and knock us off,” said Snyder. “We’re still looking at this as a playoff game that we must win and we actually had a really intense practice today and the guys know how much this win means for our season.”

In a perfect world, Snyder would be able to get his team up by a large margin early in the game and then rest some of his starting players in the second half to keep them healthy for the upcoming playoffs.

“Last week was a very physical game and we came out of it without any major injuries, but it would be nice to get some guys out of there,” said Snyder. “Plus, Catasauqua doesn’t have a JV team, so our young guys would love to get on the field for us this week.”

The game against Catasauqua will also serve as Senior Night for the Tigers.

The seniors who were with the varsity team as freshmen went 5-5 in their first season before losing to Blue Mountain in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Since then, they’ve turned things around and gone deep into districts last season and seem destined for at least the same path this time around.

“They really were the group that rounded things out for us as a program,” said Snyder. “That first season was a little tough and then we got whacked by Blue Mountain, so that left a bad taste in our mouths.

“They have really progressed for us and now they’re the heart of our team and make up a good part of our starting lineup.”