Faikish scores 6 goals, North Penn powers past La Salle
TOWAMENCIN >> The Knights don’t mind having a target on their back.
They’d prefer it be part of the uniform.
“We have the huge target on our back but we’re hungry for it,” A.J. Patterson said. “We want any competition we can get. Anyone that wants to take it, they gotta go through us first.”
The North Penn boys water polo team played like defending State Champs on Tuesday evening, scoring six goals in a pivotal second quarter on the way to a 16-9 victory over rival La Salle.
“In the past couple years, we’ve gone out a little sluggish, a little slow,” Sean Faikish said. “We’re a back-half team, and coming out in the second quarter, we came out firing.
“We got our legs underneath us finally and we started swimming fast, started moving the ball around. And it was just a great all-around win.”
Faikish scored six goals and Patterson added a hat trick as North Penn raised its unbeaten record to 3-0.
“Our power play was great today,” said Knights coach Jason Grubb, who directed the squad to its state crown a year ago. “That was probably the best part of our game. It looked nice — good clean passing, moving the ball around.
“It’s still early so we’re trying to clean some things up.”
North Penn had a 3-2 lead after the first quarter and then extended to a 9-5 cushion by the break. The Knights pushed ahead further thanks in part to the play of Chris Killion (two goals) and Carter Mitchell (two goals).
Ryan McLaughlin scored twice in the first quarter but then the Knights were able to clamp down.
“They’re a very good team and they have a very good player they can pass to that will score a lot of goals,” Patterson said. “He can score whenever he wants to. It was hard to stop him. But we made the adjustments by the second half and we shut him down.”
La Salle, which reached the state tournament a year ago, likes where it’s at early in the season.
“Just the heart and the fight they have is very encouraging,” Explorers coach Robert Halligan said. “We’re growing each game so I expect bigger things by the end of the season.
“If you wanna measure yourself, measure yourself against North Penn and see how you do. And we held our own for a little bit.”
