Houlihan the man for North Penn in four-goal effort against Souderton

TOWAMENCIN >> It was a tightly-contested Suburban One League Continental Conference opener between North Penn and Souderton Area, and then the second half happened.

And Carter Houlihan happened.

“He’s a special player,” coach Paul Duddy said of his senior midfielder.

Houlihan scored four goals — all in the second half — to break a 1-1 tie and send North Penn to a commanding 5-1 victory over the Indians.

“We had a talk at halftime,” Houlihan said. “We weren’t playing up to par. We weren’t playing like ourselves. Coach got us fired up. My teammates played some wonderful balls into me and I did the rest.”

Getting Going

Houlihan’s first goal came 15 minutes into the second half, as he was able to get to a loose ball and direct it past keeper Riley Finger for a 2-1 North Penn advantage.

Five minutes later, he was able to use his speed and footwork to break free to the net, dribbling it all the way in to sneak a shot past Finger and widen the gap to 3-1.

Next, Houlihan made a heads-up play, quickly getting the ball up and away on a restart to stun Finger with a well-placed shot into the net, making it 4-1.

“I was just ready for it. It’s something you just have to look out for,” Houlihan said. “If you see the goalie off his line, you just gotta pay attention and be ready for it.”

Houlihan capped the scoring by outracing Finger to a loose ball and booting it into the open net.

“It was a great ball from Ryan Stewart,” Houlihan said, “right over the defender’s head. And then it was basically just a one-on-one.”

Of the Knights’ chemistry coming into the season, Houlihan said: “I love it. These guys are my brothers. Not only that, it’s a great team as well. We’ve had a great season every year since my freshman year and I’m looking to cap it off with an even better season.

“(Starting conference play like this) with a 5-1 win at home, you can’t do much better than that. Everyone came up huge today. We went deep on our bench and everyone on our bench played well.”

Close Early

North Penn took its 1-0 lead with a pair of brothers working together.

James Stewart scored on the direct restart, with Ryan Stewart on the dummy run.

Souderton deadlocked it at one apiece when Thomas Smith scored on a penalty kick, going lower left corner to beat keeper Sawyer Meade.

“In the first half, I thought we were pretty good for about 20 minutes, and then I think Souderton stepped it up, put some pressure on us and we made a couple mistakes, and like a good team should, they punished us,” Duddy said. “Our guys just turned it around, and Carter led the attack.

“Great second half. We finally started getting the ball and connecting a little bit, and finding Carter. It was a tremendous effort, a tremendous performance. He’s good every game, and his second half today was exceptional.”