Most times in football, 5-yard penalties are as forgettable as they are inconsequential. However, an illegal snap penalty on Northampton on 4th and 1 from their own 48 with under 3 minutes to play up 35-28, caused them to punt the ball back to Whitehall instead of going for that 1 yard.

The Zephyrs drove 75 yards in 2:13 and made the 2-point conversion to pull out a 36-35 win in the 2020 Cement Bowl.

Would the K-Kids have gained that yard and run out clock? Consider that Northampton rushed for 314 yards on 46 carries. Only on three of those carries did they fail to advance the ball past the line of scrimmage.

Head coach Kyle Haas had few words after the game.

“I’m so disappointed right now,” he said. “We should have run the clock out. We did a bonehead mistake; I can’t believe we did it. I’m not going to say what we did, but we screwed the last play up. It’s something we’ve never done in practice and all of sudden we self-destructed on one play.”

Northampton went 80 yards in 6 plays on their first possession to take a 7-0 lead and did not trail in the game until the two-point conversion with 20 seconds left. They also were never able to extend the lead beyond 7 points at any time.

QB Joe Kerbacher scored on a pair of sneaks for the Kids’ first two touchdowns.

Michael Cruz scored Northampton’s last three touchdowns. His first was a 33-yard scamper on 4th and 1 on the K-Kids’ first possession of the second half. He later took a Kerbacher slant to the house from 18 yards out. His third touchdown was another fourth down conversion, this time from the one yard line.

Defensively, Northampton struggled with two Zephyr players, QB Quinn Wentling and WR Tommy Buskirk. Wentling accounted for 416 of Whitehall’s 460 yards from scrimmage. He had 200 yards rushing, including an 84-yard run and 216 yards passing.

The 6’ 3” Buskirk proved to be a mismatch, hauling in 9 passes for 105 yards.

Northampton statistical leaders

Rushing – Cruz 126 yds 2 TD, Harris 68 yds, Kerbacher 64 yds 2 TD, Luisi 33 yds, Mannino 23 yds

Receiving – Harris 2-35 yds, Cruz 1-18 yds TD

Passing – Kerbacher 3-9 53 yds 1 TD 1 Int on a game ending Hail Mary

Northampton narrowly missed the eighth and final spot for the district playoffs. Pleasant Valley, with a 1-2 record and a win over East Stroudsburg North, claimed the berth based on the power rating calculation difference of .472598 to .438628.

The K-Kids still have their annual tilt with Catasauqua on Thanksgiving and rumor has it that Northampton will try to pick up another game once the first round of districts have been played.