When Northampton won the coin toss prior to their Friday night contest against Freedom, they made the somewhat unconventional choice to take the ball first rather than defer until the second half.

The K-Kids’ offense responded by mounting a 16-play, 7-minute, 80-yard drive that was capped off by a 19-yard run by Chase Kessler touchdown run to give them an early lead. Gavin Taff, the Kids’ newly minted career passing yards record holder, converted a key 4th and 8 with a 9-yard scramble to keep the drive alive.

The Patriots missed a field goal on their opening possession and when the first quarter horn sounded, Northampton found themselves on top of the home team 7-0.

From that point on however, not much went the K-Kids’ way as Freedom outgained them 425-160 and won 35-14.

The game slipped away in the middle of third quarter.

The Pates’ Michael Stofanak threw a bomb to wideout Davyan Moore that resulted in an 81-yard touchdown play. A Northampton interception on the next drive set Freedom up in plus territory. A questionable pass interference call against the Kids’ on 4th and 2 kept the drive alive and Lashawn Johnson helped the Patriots take advantage by scoring his second TD of the game on the next play.

Head coach John Toman reflected on the game, “I thought we were doing some good things. You know, we battled all night long. I think we corrected some things defensively, but like I just said to them, ‘This game’s about making plays in the moment.’ And we didn’t make enough plays in the moment.”

“We didn’t defend enough passes, we didn’t catch the ball in certain situations. We missed a block. We missed a tackle. All that leads up to not winning football games,” Toman concluded.

On a positive note, senior Zeke Spencer returned from his opening game injury and saw action on both sides of the ball.

Northampton fell to 3-5 on the season. Eight out of the 11 6A teams qualify for districts this year. Allen and Dieruff are almost certainly on the outside looking in. That leaves the Kids, Emmaus (3-5), Stroudsburg (4-4), and PM West (5-3) battling it out for the final three spots.

Based on the opponents’ winning percentage component of the district power ranking system, the Kids have played the second toughest schedule in all of District XI. Nazareth has played the toughest.

Northampton most likely with have to win at least one of their final two games against either the Blue Eagles or Bethlehem Catholic, or have one of the other three contenders lose out, in order to make the playoffs.

NHS 7 0 7 0 -14

Freedom 0 14 14 7 -35

Northampton Rushing (att-yards): Kessler 14-80 1TD, Rickert 5-29, Barkanic 1-10, Strowder 1-4, Hackett 1-1 1TD, Spencer 2-(-1), Taff 6-(-4)

Northampton Passing (comp-att-int): Taff 17-26-1 135 yards

Northampton Receiving (rec-yards): Hersch 5-38, Wadlington 4-23, Spencer 2-11, Kessler 1-20, Strowder 1-19, Kline 1-13, Stuhldreher 1-11, Barkanic 1-0, Rickert 1-(-6)

Defensively, Wadlington had an interception and a 39-yard return to go with 5 tackles. Chase Czarnecki led the team with 8 stops.