After moving to the EPC North Division in 2018 and piling up a 39-1 division record and 4 straight division titles, the Northampton football team has had to endure naysayers doubting their ability to compete with the strong teams in the Lehigh Valley.

Even a handful of wins against Whitehall and Bethlehem Catholic were not enough to convince the cynics that they belonged.

Those talks should be over following the Konkrete Kids’ 41-28 win over Nazareth last Friday night in Al Erdosy Stadium.

The Blue Eagles, winners of three of the last six district 6A titles, were pounded into submission by the Kids’ offensive line. Northampton racked up 448 yards rushing on 58 attempts. Sophomore Chase Kessler accounted for 317 of those yards, including 9 runs of 10 yards or more, and 3 touchdowns.

Head coach John Toman spoke about his rushing attack, “He’s (Kessler) going to be a special back. But the line up front, they were excited about this all week, the opportunity to go against this team. I thought we could impose our will on them and obviously we did tonight.”

The Northampton defense, which has struggled much of the year, came up with enough stops against a high-flying Blue Eagles’ offense that had averaged over 45 points a game the last three weeks, even without star quarterback Peyton Falzone, who had broken his collarbone earlier in the season.

Special teams played a huge role in the outcome of the game too. Northampton went for and recovered an onside kick to start the second half. Kessler bolted for a 51-yard touchdown on the next play from scrimmage.

Taking advantage of what must surely have been a shell-shocked Blue Eagles squad, Toman called for another onside kick, which Zander Rickert pounced on setting up a short field for another Kids’ touchdown drive.

“I got the seniors together and said, ‘We’re up 14-7, do you want to roll the dice and go for it?’ And they’re like, ‘Yep, let’s do it.’ So we did it, got it and did it a second time. We were coming in to win today. We weren’t playing it safe. Probably, we played it safe too many times this year,” explained Toman.

While the onside kicks gave the Kids a big momentum boost and a 21-point lead, no one was taking the win for granted given the gut-wrenching losses Northampton has sustained this season.

Toman described the team’s perseverance through this year’s roller coaster season, “We were up 28-7 again and then it went to 28-21. I know doubts started creeping in on the sidelines, ‘Here we go again.’ But credit to the kids, to the staff, we try to stay upbeat and positive and the kids came through. Maybe those experiences helped us tonight. But beating Nazareth, the team that they are, that’s something special. We were looking for that big victory and we finally got it.”

Captain and leader of the offensive line, Riley Montgomery confirmed the assessment, “This is huge. We know we needed a signature win. We’ve been saying it for weeks. The last few weeks have been kind of down with the losses. Coming into this game, it’s Senior Night. It’s our last home game in this stadium for the seniors. It was really important for us to get this one.”

While nothing is official, the win against Nazareth should have clinched a district playoff berth for Northampton.

The Kids’ final regular season game on Friday against Bethlehem Catholic has major implications on their playoff seeding. A win should keep them in the sixth spot in the rankings setting up a rematch with the Blue Eagles next week at Andrew S Leh Stadium.

A loss to Becahi and a Stroudsburg win versus Pleasant Valley would likely see them go on the road against either Parkland or Easton in the quarterfinals.

Nazareth 7 0 14 7 - 28

N’hampton 0 14 14 13 - 41

NHS rushing (att-yards): Kessler 32-317 3TD, Taff 10-56 TD, Rickert 11-52 2TD, Barkanic 1-19, Small 2-6

NHS passing (comp-att): Taff 3-8 29 yards

NHS receiving (rec-yards): Wadlington 1-17, Hersch 1-7, Hackett 1-5