“We were too inconsistent. We were way too inconsistent,” lamented Northampton head football coach Kyle Haas after the K-Kids lost 21-14 to Easton at Al Erdosy Stadium last Friday.

That inconsistency showed itself in all three phases of the game.

On defense, Northampton held the Rovers to a meager 6 of 16 passing for 70 yards. They also forced and recovered a pair of Easton fumbles to end drives just outside the red zone. However, running back Nahjee Adams rolled up 286 yards on 27 carries, including a dozen runs of 10 or more yards.

Offensively, the K-Kids ran the ball well on a 67-yard TD drive on their second possession and threw the ball effectively on a 70-yard TD drive on their final possession. On the 9 drives in between, they totaled 97 yards.

Special teams played a key role in the game. Aiden Reinhard out-punted his Easton counterpart by almost 10 yards per kick, including a pair of 40+ yard bombs that pinned the Rovers inside their 20. A blocked 38-yard field goal at the end of the second quarter denied Northampton a chance to take a 10-7 halftime lead. An 81-yard punt return for a touchdown by Easton with 5 minutes left proved to be the decisive score.

Easton scored the first points of the game on its second drive, going 82 yards on four Adams’ runs.

Northampton answered immediately with an 11-play drive capped off by a 3-yard Isaiah Harris TD run.

The Rovers next drive ended when Michael Cruz recovered a fumble at the Northampton 32 following an Easton completion.

Victor Hunt ripped the ball away from Adams at Northampton’s 30 to keep the score at 7-7 with three minutes left in the half.

On the blocked FG at the end of the half, an Easton player came out of the pile with the ball and ran to the end zone, but the officials had blown the play dead.

Easton scored the go-ahead TD with 1:08 left in the 3rd quarter to make the score 14-7.

On the punt return TD, the Rover returner broke a tackle at the point of the catch before heading up the right sideline to make the score 21-7.

The final Northampton drive was the Cooper King show. He got things started by laying out to snag a 25-yard Joe Kerbacher pass. He then finished the drive with a leaping grab of a well-thrown Kerbacher 15-yard fade.

Kerbacher was 19 of 39 for 187 yards, one TD and one INT. He also had 26 yards rushing which were canceled out by 4 sacks for -34 yards. Michael Cruz led the team with 36 yards on the ground. Jonathon Mannino had 16, Owen Baker 13, and Isaiah Harris 12.

King had 5 receptions for 66 yards and a TD. Cruz had 3 for 31, Jeriah Chevere 3 for 26, Baker 2 for 25, and Mannino 1 for 20.

Next up for Northampton is Cement Belt rival Whitehall. The K-Kids beat the Zephyrs 43-37 last year during a season in which Whitehall went winless. This year, Matt Senneca’s group has wins against Allen and Dieruff to go with losses to Central, Parkland, and Emmaus. The losses to the Trojans and Hornets were by 17 and 10 points respectively, so it appears that program may have turned a corner.