The Northampton football team won the East Stroudsburg South game on a walk off field goal, but no such magic happened last Friday in Bethlehem as the potential game-tying field goal never got off and the desperation heave by the holder wound up as pick six for Liberty as the Hurricanes knocked off the Konkrete Kids 16-7.

In the postgame huddle, head coach John Toman stressed that the final play was not the reason the Kids lost and offered the following assessment to the Press, “There were a lot of distractions during the week. A lot of distractions away from football that became a football thing. It is what it is. I think it impacted us a little bit in the first half, but they kept fighting. We had an opportunity to kick the field goal to tie because we ran out of time and we just screwed it up. It happens.”

The fact that the game was still in reach on the final play was a testament to the resilience of the team. They were down 10-0 just over a minute into the second quarter and the defense shut out Liberty over the next 34 minutes.

While the defense was stout, the offense turned the ball over three times in Hurricane territory including a fumble inside the 10-yard line.

Toman emphasized those points after the game, “The defense plays well every week, let’s be honest. They do their thing and take care of business. The offense, we gotta figure it out. We have to get better at the quarterback position. I thought Billy (Stuhledreher) ran his butt off tonight. I think our line leaned on them and we took them over in the second half. We moved the ball but we self-destructed inside the 30. We have to fix that.”

Stuhldreher ran 22 times for 132 yards to pace the Kids’ offense.

Both Gavin Taff and Aiden Hess saw time at quarterback. Taff was 8 of 10 for 57 yards passing including a 28-yarder to Tymir Williams for Northampton’s only score with 5 minutes left in the contest. Taff added 13 yards rushing.

Hess was 4 of 7 for 28 yards and threw 2 interceptions. He rushed for 37 yards.

Williams had 5 catches for 55 yards. Cameron Hersch had 2 for 18.

As a team Northampton outgained Liberty 260 to 256.