North Penn gets payback in District 1-6A 1st round win over CB South

WARRINGTON >> This trip to Central Bucks South worked out much better than the North Penn football team’s last one.

With a superb defensive effort and a rushing attack paced by Khalani Eaton and Evan Spann that going rolling after halftime, the ninth-seeded Knights avenged their loss to the No. 8 Titans two weeks earlier and advanced to the District 1-6A quarterfinals with a 35-7 first-round victory Friday night.

“That’s a lot of motivation, especially watching film of the team we lost to a few weeks ago,” Spann said. “It was kind of hard watching that film but we just knew what we had to do when we came back this week.”

North Penn (8-3) was up just 7-0 at halftime but began finishing its drives with touchdowns and pulling away in the second half. Four of the Knights’ first five drives after the break reached the end zone, including the opening series of the third quarter — a 70-yard, six-play drive Eaton capped by scoring from three yards out, extending the lead to 14-0 at 9:11.

“We said in the locker room, look I think we can really run the ball at them, let’s not be cute here and see if we can get up 14,” North Penn coach Dick Beck said. “We were playing such good defense I thought if we got up 14, you know with these guys they’re so good on offense, they do so many things well, you’re always nervous, you’re always on your edge. So, one score I didn’t feel comfortable.”

Eaton and Spann both ran for more than 100 yards as the Knights racked up 418 yards on the ground. Eaton finished with a game-high 150 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries while Spann went for 128 yards and two scores on 14 carries as the Knights move on to face top-seeded Downingtown West, a 63-35 winner over No. 16 Pennsbury. North Penn and West met in last year’s district semifinals with the Knights coming away with a 35-21 victory.

“The offensive line played a really good game,” Spann said. “Without them, we would not be able to run the ball that well, we wouldn’t be able to pass the ball so I just want to say thanks to my offensive line up front and everyone just trusted their blocks and we just ran the ball hard.”

In North Penn’s Week 9 visit to CB South (7-4), the Titans erased a 14-point fourth quarter deficit to claim a 36-35 win, the loss ending the Knights’ chance at earning a share of the SOL Continental Conference title. Friday, South was held to negative-15 yards rushing and a season-low in points — the Titans’ lone touchdown coming in the game’s final minute — as North Penn won its district opener for the fifth consecutive season.

“We knew that the first game we played was very winnable by us,” Knights senior fullback/linebacker Nate Brown said. “They played a heck of a game that time but it was very winnable, so it was just making adjustments at practice, coming up with a new plan to attack them and really just coming back with kind of an anger to get back at them.”

CB South quarterback Carter Hallgren was 9-of-14 passing for 101 yards and a touchdown. Sean Smith had four catches for 78 yards and a TD for the Titans, who were looking for their first district victory since 2012.

North Penn QB Kolby Barrow completed 7-of-16 passes for 93 yards and also ran seven times for 32 yards. RJ Macnamara added 53 yards and a touchdown on eight carries.

Knights D Makes Early Statement

North Penn’s defense set the tone by stuffing the Titans on three straight 3rd-and-shorts on South’s first three possessions. A miscue on a punt attempt in the second quarter had the Titans’ fourth drive start at North Penn’s 21 but the Knights maintained the 7-0 advantage by forcing an incomplete pass on 4th-and-4 from the 15.

“I think was just trusting our reads, not getting out of position and trying to do our job,” Brown said. “I felt the first game it was guys looking in the backfield, maybe not trusting their reads and getting their self out of position where this time we were able to keep contain and everyone did their job, did their part to keep the defense in check.”

North Penn held South without a first down in the first half with South recording a total of four first downs on the night — two coming on the Titans’ final drive trailing 35-0.

“I thought putting Kevon (White) around 29, Smith, I thought he did a great job on Smith, who’s an excellent player and just had a great year,” Beck said. “I thought anytime we had their original guy that they were looking for covered, our pass rush got to him. So, if he looked and his guy that his first receiver wasn’t open, we got to him — he didn’t have time to throw which was huge. And I thought that we did a nice job setting the edge.

“You know, first time we played them, they kicked our tails turning the corner on a speed sweep. My thing was we’re not letting that happen this time.”

Second-Half Surge

Trailing 14-0, CB South drove inside NP territory only to give the ball back after a Cory Keim sack on a 4th-and-17 from the Knights 44. North Penn proceeded to go up 21-0 with an eight-play, 47-yard drive Spann finished with a four-yard touchdown run at 3:54 in the third quarter.

The Knights made 28-0 in the fourth quarter when Spann raced 47 yards down to the two and scored his second rushing TD on the next play at 6:24. North Penn added a fifth touchdown after recovering a fumble at the South 24, Zayd Ward-Richardson rushing to the end one from 14 yards out at 2:21 remaining.

The Titans denied North Penn its second shutout the season with 43.9 seconds when Smith hauled in a 43-yard touchdown pass from Hallgren.

The lone points of the first half came on Macnamara’s 1-yard touchdown run at 2:52 in the first quarter. Late in the second quarter, North Penn had a 1st-and-Goal from the 7 but ended up with no points after a missed field goal at 26.3 seconds and went it the half up 7-0.

“We kept shooting ourselves in the foot,” Beck said. “It was one holding penalty after another and then it was jump offsides then we had the bad snap on the punt so it was so many things I thought the first half was not indicative of really how the game was going — the score.”