Six goals for the Knights lead them past Rams

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Prasham Jobanputra

The Knights celebrate after Carter Houlihan’s goal.

WYNDMOOR- The boys soccer team kicked off their 2019 playoff journey with a dominant win as every aspect of the game was controlled by North Penn.

The North Penn Knights (18-1) beat the Pennridge Rams (10-8) 6-0.  The Knights elected to play at La Salle College High School since the field is regulation size.  Nevertheless, the Knights came out with a win in their first playoff game after having a first round bye.

18 seconds is all it took for the Knights to get on the board.  Senior Carter Houlihan passed to senior John Graber who poked the ball in, to give the Knights a 1-0 lead.

Prasham Jobanputra
John Graber’s goal was a tone-setter grabbing immediate momentum.

“Coming into the game, we knew we had to get one early.  Their coach was talking a lot on the websites for moving the game, so that gave us a little extra motivation to prove a point,” Graber said.

2 minutes later Houlihan got another assist, this time off a corner kick to Jamie Stewart who got the goal for a 2-0 lead.  Then, Jack Durkin took his turn to assist the ball.  He first found Ryan Stewart down the field for a goal with 12:41 left in the first half and then found Houlihan with 7:17 left for another goal and a 4-0 lead into halftime.

“They were just playing a high line and I knew I could hit it over so I just went for it,” Durkin explained.

The Knights tacked on two more goals in the second half.  First Houlihan used a dribble move to get past the goalie who left the net and put in an easy goal 13 seconds into the second half.  Then with 5:58 left in the game, senior Nate Burnell put the final goal in as the Knights won 6-0.

The Knights will now play on Saturday and will play the winner of Spring-Ford vs Abington, with the time and location still to be decided.

“This team is loose.  They just go out and play and it’s great.  This team makes coaches look like they know what they’re doing,” Head Coach Paul Duddy jokingly said after the game.