BERWYN- On a night of sports firsts, like the Cubs’ first world series title in 108 years, the Knights (No. 5, 17-4) soccer team hoped to channel some of that sports mojo into handing Conestoga (No.1, 21-0) their first loss of the season in the District 1 AAAA semifinals. This night would prove to belong to the Cubs only though, as the Knights fell 2-1 after an offensive late surge was cut short by the buzzer. Conestoga, in turn, improved to an astounding 21-0.

In the first half, the Patriots kept a majority of the possession, putting pressure on the North Penn goal from the start.  Senior goalkeeper Bobby Dean made several saves to keep Conestoga off of the score board. Senior Noah Kwortnik and freshman Carter Houlihan also contributed to the solid defensive effort to keep the ball out of the goal.

“They are really good at possessing the ball and getting quick crosses in. For a defense, that makes it difficult to defend,” said Kwortnik.

Towards the end of the first half, the Knights started getting the ball into Conestoga territory. Senior Mike Kohler was able to move the ball well with his speedy footwork and vision of the field. His deep passes to sophomore Luke McMahon and Aiden Jerome gave the Knights many scoring opportunities, but they could not capitalize against Patriot goalkeeper, Luke Smith.  

The game was tied 0-0 going into the half.

Conestoga started the second half with a burst of intensity to break the tie, scoring in the first 45 seconds (Blaise Milanek, 39:15). Not too much longer afterward, Conestoga found the net again, putting them ahead 2-0 (Mason Miller, 25:10). With the time running down to tie up the game, the Knights put their foot on the gas. They had shots that almost hit the corner and a shot that hit the crossbar, but none were going in.

After another shot just missed the goal; North Penn defeatedly sighed, wondering how they were going to get a goal against Conestoga. Before they could finish sighing, a roar of cheering erupted from the the Knights sideline; Kwortnik kept the ball in and scored (10:06). Kwortnik gave North Penn the boost that they needed at the time.

For the last ten minutes the Knights poured on pressure. They pushed Kwortnik up from defense and looked to get possession of every ball. McMahon and Kohler both made impressive drives to try and get another goal; however, their late surge was ended by the sound of the buzzer.

“We have complete confidence in ourselves that we can come back in any game, no doubt. After the first goal we are ready for the second, but it just never came today,” said Kohler.

The Knights struggled scoring because their usual offensive weapons were heavily blocked by the Conestoga defense.

“We have four really dangerous attack players and [Conestoga] did a good job of shutting us down [up top],” said Head Coach Paul Duddy.

The Knights know how hard it is to face an undefeated team, but they also understand the importance of learning from their loses.

“Through every hardship there is always a reward. Tonight we played a hard team, like we will be in States. To be honest, I think tonight is going to help us in the long run,” said Kwortnik.

The Knights will finish off their District playoffs with a game on Saturday to determine their seeding for the upcoming state tournament.