The Northampton football leaned on their offensive triplets of Billy Stuhldreher, Tymir Williams, and Gavin Taff as well as an opportunistic defense to down District I Pennsbury 24-2 in their home opener last Friday.

Stuhldreher had two first half touchdowns and racked up a total of 151 yards from scrimmage, 117 coming on the ground. Williams, in his first official action since tearing his ACL in last season’s opener, caught 4 passes for 92 yards and a touchdown on the Kids’ opening possession of the second half.

Taff was 11 of 15 passing for 181 yards and threw some absolute dimes into tight coverage, including the fade to Williams for the TD. He also picked up 36 yards on 5 attempts with his legs.

Williams described coming back from injury and developing report with Taff, “It’s amazing. I missed last season with him and that sucked, but I was working all offseason with him to get back out here. Obviously, that paid off tonight. He’s grown so much since last year. It’s great to be back out here with him.”

Head coach John Toman appraised his offensive stars, “Number 44 (Pennsbury’s Walker Murray) is one hell of a linebacker, but Billy made him miss a couple of times. Billy’s got a lot of wiggle and can make people miss and has great vision on the field. Tymir made big plays, which we thought he was going to do last year, but we lost him. We’re super excited for them and obviously Gavin threw the ball well today.”

On the defensive side, the Falcons did run for 251 yards on 45 carries but were undone by 4 fumbles. (The K-Kids did not turn the ball over.) They only attempted 4 passes, completed none, and Aiden Brearman snared a game-ending interception for the Kids.

Toman assessed the defense, “That’s a big football team that just played tonight. We were outsized, but it didn’t matter. We fought. We weren’t sure if we were going to get pushed around. We have a young defensive line after losing Colby Reph and Jake Biery and the defense did a great job all night.”

Stuhldreher scored on the first play of the second quarter on an 11-yard run off left tackle to stake Northampton to a 7-0 lead.

The K-Kid defense stopped Pennsbury near midfield on the ensuing drive. The Falcons were able to down the punt inside the Northampton 5 and were able to make a tackle in the backfield for a safety and their only points of the night.

A 46-yard hookup between Taff and Williams set up Stuhldreher for a 5-yard TD scamper up the middle with 4:40 left in the first half.

The Taff to Williams connection provided 7 points to start the second half, giving the Kids a 21-2 lead. Aaron Gutkowski added a fourth quarter field goal to cap the scoring.

Northampton travels to East Stroudsburg South this Friday to take on the Cavaliers. South defeated Abington Heights 33-14 in their season opener. With the EPC splitting into three divisions, the two schools are no longer division rivals, but the Cavaliers were probably the team that gave the Kids the most tough games when they played together in the North Division.