The recipe for a high school football rivalry is as follows: take two outstanding programs, put them in the same division, have each compete for top honors, have some postseason history to lather up some dislike then shake and repeat.

As a spectacle, last Friday’s Emmaus-Nazareth battle was a superb high school football game between two outstanding football programs. From the Green Hornets’ perspective, they’d like to change the outcome, or at least have one more offensive play.

Thanks to a determined second-half showing, two lengthy high school field goals and some Emmaus red zone duds, the Blue Eagles (7-1, 5-1 division) handed the Green Hornets (7-1, 5-1 division) their first season loss at Andrew S. Leh Stadium, 20-14. With the win Nazareth takes over first place in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference South Division.

From the start this one was explosive. The game’s first play featured Emmaus’ soon-to-be patented Fotta-to-Fotta connection on a post pattern good for 67 yards to the Nazareth 13.

Jake hit Chase three more times on the night for 105 yards. However, deep in Nazareth territory Emmaus’ offense bogged down and came away with nothing. That allowed the Blue Eagles to break on top later in the quarter thanks to a booming 42-yard field goal off the toes of kicker Chris Bugbee for a 3-0 advantage.

After the team showcased their offensive firepower with plenty of sound and fury but no points, the Hornets took the lead on a 33-yard touchdown pass to Tylik Jarvis from Jake Fotta at 7-3. On the play, Jarvis was wide open, catching a nearly perfectly thrown pass on a circle route out of the backfield and untouched into the end zone.

After getting back the ball, the Emmaus offense orchestrated another of many fine drives on the evening. But with seconds remaining before halftime a Jake Fotta pass was picked off in the Nazareth end zone. The turnover was the third time in the first half the Hornets were in the red zone and came away with nothing. Ultimately, this is probably what cost them the game.

That’s because the Blue Eagles stormed out of halftime like a bolt of lightning and thundered down the field on seven-play, 60-yard drive.

Unlike their first-half drive that produced nothing, this time quarterback Sonny Sasso hit Frankie Mroz in the end zone on a 20-yard touchdown pass for a 10-7 lead.

Emmaus’ turn with the pigskin produced nothing. After a punt, the Blue Eagles again marched down the field for a touchdown.

This time the drive was 73 yards and featured a steady diet of runs between the tackles and a 45-yard pitch-and catch from Sasso to Mason Kuehner. Sasso, an offensive force, took the rock in from a yard out for a 17-7 lead with 3:48 left in the third period.

But to their credit, the Hornets fought back. They went on a brilliant 67-yard drive of their own, culminating on the first play of the fourth quarter one a one-yard run up the middle from Josiah Williams to cut the deficit to 17-14.

Later in the quarter, Nazareth again embarked on another time-consuming drive, this one ending with a clutch 42-yard field goal by Bugbee to give the Blue Eagles some insurance at 20-14 with j48 seconds remaining.

The Hornets are winners and winners do not quit. Scoring a touchdown in less than a minute at the end of the game is never easy. Doing it with no timeouts is difficult. However Emmaus almost pulled off a dramatic comeback as it marched to the Nazareth red zone where Rafael Terrero caught a pass over the middle as time expired.

The loss featured great performances by several Hornets. Jake Fotta was incredible, going 21-29 for 257 yards with one touchdown and one INT. Dylan Darville is simply one of the best wide receivers in Lehigh Valley football.

In this one he caught nine passes for 83 yards and scared the heck out of the Nazareth secondary all night. The offensive line did a mostly good job in pass perfection, although the rushing attack was not at its best in this one.

Defensively the Hornets surrendered 179 rushing yards on 37 Nazareth carries. Some of those runs by Collin Wells and Jed Bendeokovits came through big holes. No one really stops Sasso and Emmaus didn’t either. But he didn’t destroy them, hitting 12 of 19 passes for 143 yards and a touchdown.

This was a game either team could have won and Emmaus didn’t. But the Hornets could get another chance with bigger stakes next month.