Knights headed to District Finals

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Prasham Jobanputra

The Knights celebrate after their win that sent them into the District Final

SOUDERTON- The game went back and forth with momentum shifts on both sides.  With a trip to the district finals for boys soccer on the line, both teams showed a lot of heart, it was just a matter of who scored last.

The North Penn Knights (20-1) took down the Conestoga Pioneers (16-4-3) 3-2 in a wild back and forth District 1 AAAA semifinals match.

Prasham Jobanputra
Jamie Stewart’s goal

The Knights got on the board first in the 12th minute.  Ryan Stewart sent a corner kick in and found his twin brother Jamie who headed the ball in for a goal.  Everything was going well for the Knights until with 7.9 seconds left in the first half, Nate Xu sent in a pass that forced North Penn’s goalie, Sawyer Meade to come out of the net and try to win a race for the ball.  Conestoga’s Elijah Brown got there first however and tied up the game heading into halftime.

“We talked about it and we’re here because we can do a lot of good things right all season so one goal shouldn’t change much,” Head Coach Paul Duddy said about the momentum shifting goal to end the first half.

Then the Pioneers took the lead.  Meade went for the ball once again but could not come up with it.  Javier Coll got the ball and passed it to Jacob Albertson for an easy open net goal.  The Knights did respond in the 66th minute where Jack Durkin sent a long pass to Carter Houlihan.  Houlihan had to fight for the possession of the ball but once he won it, he put it into the net to tie up the game at 2.  64 seconds later, the Knights took the lead.  Josh Jones had a pretty pass to Ryan Stewart who put a powerful shot into the net for the 3-2 lead.

“We kinda set that up like Josh Jones winning that header and putting it in to the other side of the net and I saw it go further back so I ran over, chested it down, I had to call a couple players off it, but I knew I could score that goal and I wanted that opportunity,” Stewart explained.

The Knights ran down the clock and kept the lead to secure a spot in Saturday’s district final game.  The Knights will be up against the Boyertown Bears at 6 pm at Spring-Ford high school.

“After coming off a great win, I think we need to bring that momentum into Saturday’s game.  I don’t think North Penn has ever won a district championship so the whole team knows how much of an honor that would be if we were the first,” senior captain, Carter Houlihan said.