As many schools across the area replace their grass fields with turf, it’s easy to forget the few schools that still play on natural grass. One of them is Catasauqua, where Northwestern Lehigh football plays this week to wrap up the regular season schedule. That fact becomes a little more important when you realize that it will be the first game this season that the Tigers will play on real grass and the weather forecast could turn that grass and dirt into a muddy mess.

“Our practice field is grass, so it’s not like we’re completely unfamiliar with being off the turf, but playing a game on a muddy field is very different from practicing on a well maintained, dry grass field,” said Northwestern head coach Josh Snyder.

Catasauqua came into last week’s game against Wilson with an 0-4 record. They were able to put up a season-high 41 points to beat the Warriors 41-34. The point total was just shy of the 48 points they had scored in their previous games this season. Snyder admits that their performance last week combined with the fact that this is the final game of the season for Catasauqua makes them more dangerous than the normal 1-5 team.

“They just kept putting up points last week and in watching the video, they did a lot of nice things,” Snyder said. “They’ve got a new coaching staff and they’ve kind of gone back to basics and the guys played hard for them. We got to see some earlier game video and you can see how they’ve gotten better each week.”

The Roughies are one of the youngest teams in the Colonial League and rely on freshmen and sophomores for much of their offense. Freshman running back Hunter Reitz is averaging just under five yards per carry this season and is getting the bulk of the carries. Other young players are chipping in on the ground game with sophomore Anthonie Hunsicker carrying the ball about seven times per game and amassing an average of 8.4 yards per carry.

Quarterback Nasir McLean, also a freshman, has 39 carries for 100 yards on the season. Through the air, McLean has a completion percentage just under 50-percent and has thrown for 444 total yards this season. McLean’s favorite target is senior Austin Brett (12 catches, 154 yards) and when Catasauqua looks to throw long, junior Brandon Jenny is the go-to receiver, having caught just seven passes, but averaging nearly 24 yards per catch.

Northwestern will look to do much the same thing that it has done the past couple of weeks. Against both Salisbury and Saucon Valley, Snyder has inserted some different packages and rotated players through a couple of positions, primarily at corner back and for a slot receiver because of the injury to Justin Rodda, who will miss this week’s game.

“Some of the things that we’ve done have created some openings for us,” Snyder said. “We’ll keep mixing and matching and giving guys opportunities because it’s worked for us. We won’t have Justin [Rodda] again this week, so we’ll have guys play different roles for us on both sides of the ball.”

Not being one to look ahead, Snyder doesn’t spend a lot of time running through playoff scenarios for his team as the season ends and teams fight for positioning in the District 11 playoffs. Coming into the weekend, the Tigers (5-1) are atop the rankings in 4A football, but it’s by the slightest of margins over Pottsville (5-1). Northwestern is playing a 1-4 team from a lower classification while Pottsville plays Blue Mountain (4-3) which is also a 4A team. Lurking below Pottsville are Central Catholic (3-2) and Bethlehem Catholic (3-2), who play each other this week in a matchup of 6A teams.

District rankings are based on a formula that takes strength of schedule into consideration and awards teams for wins over schools in higher classifications. The 4A classification will have eight teams in the playoffs with the top two teams being guaranteed home games in the first two rounds.

“All we can do is focus on beating Catasauqua Friday night,” said Snyder of the playoff situation. “When all the games are played, the numbers will come out and we’ll see what happens. I don’t focus on what’s next, I like to focus on what’s right in front of us and that’s Catasauqua.”