Macnamara’s faceoff prowess helps North Penn possess win over Souderton

TOWAMENCIN >> Momentum is everything in lacrosse.

It’s easy to build momentum and then ride it out for an extended period of time, but it can also turn 180 degrees in an instant. If a team can find a way to control the ebbs and flows of momentum, it’s going to give itself a chance to win.

Thursday night, that’s exactly what the North Penn boys lacrosse team did in a 9-8 victory over visiting Souderton.

“We had the ball a lot, it took a long time for the offense to get going but they got going and in the second half, it was a matter of finishing,” Knights coach Rick Smith said. “The looks were there but we just were not finishing.”

North Penn took a while to get going offensively, but scored a key goal to end the first half and turned it into plenty of momentum in the second half. The Knights also controlled the clock and time of possession and often, that’s half the battle itself.

The Knights got a sterling performance on the faceoff X from sophomore RJ Macnamara and a balanced offense with three players scoring at least two goals.

Despite controlling the ball for a majority of the first half, the Knights found themselves down 4-1 with less than a minute to play. After a couple of chaotic possessions, the Knights got a turnover and made a goal of it when Eric Diamond found Andrew Kelly with 34.6 seconds left in the half.

“I would say the things in the first half went our way and we capitalized on some things better than we did in the second half,” Souderton coach Mark Princehorn said. “We made a lot of mental mistakes throughout the course of the game and against a good team like this, you can’t make those mental mistakes because they lead to not having one possession and one possession leads to not having one goal and you lose by one goal so you think about all those chances and opportunities.”

Eric Diamond to Andrew Kelly for second time. Tied up 4-4 with 9:38 left Q3 pic.twitter.com/4OgnIn2pnY

— Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3) May 4, 2018

X MARKS THE SPOT

There’s no set formula for what a good faceoff man looks like, but RJ Macnamara checks off a lot of boxes.

The 6-foot-1, 200 pound sophomore also plays football for the Knights and wrestled as a freshman, so he’s got the size and strength to give himself an advantage in faceoffs. He’s also very athletic and probably most important, he really likes his job.

“It’s all my teammates on the sideline, they hype me up to go out there and win faceoffs,” Macnamara said. “Whoever gets the faceoff gets the possession and possession wins games. We need the ball to possess and score goals, we get the ball, score goals and we win the game.”

Behind Macnamara’s efforts, the Knights went 19-4 on faceoffs on Thursday. The sophomore was very quick to compliment the two players flanking the X, as well as the rest of his teammates for coming up with the ball on several occasions where he didn’t win the draw outright.

While some faceoff guys stay on the field, Macnamara usually doesn’t so when he came off after draws, he started imploring his teammates to get him back on the X.

“It is like being in a zone, yeah,” Macnamara said. “I get out there, I know what I’m going to do, I know what the other team’s trying to do and if I don’t win the initial clamp, I’m getting it out to one of my wings and they’re going to help me out. They’re always there for me.”

The sophomore played linebacker and fullback for the Knights this season but expects to move to defensive end and tight end next fall and plans to wrestle again next season.

Macnamara said he can usually figure out what the opposing team’s faceoff guy wants to do after one or two draws. It’s his first year taking faceoffs for the varsity squad but he’s already become an impact player and one of the guys who’s most responsible for keeping momentum rolling. Smith said Macnamara has worked hard all season and has greatly improved with his decision-making when he outright wins a faceoff himself.

“Tonight was one of his best games, he just did a strong job,” Smith said. “He’s just so athletic. He puts the whole team on his shoulders, he’s on the sideline yelling at our offense to get him back out there. He wants the offense to score so he can go win them the ball back.”

Stephen Blue nets a hat trick for Souderton. 6-6 with 2:44 left Q3 pic.twitter.com/jee1VQfaMw

— Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3) May 4, 2018

KEY GOAL

Andrew Kelly has a look he gives to Eric Diamond when it’s time to make something happen.

Late in the first half, Kelly looked to Diamond, cut to the net and caught Diamond’s pass for a one-timer that cut Souderton’s lead to 4-2 just before the break. In a game where momentum was so important, getting that boost going into half proved instrumental for the Knights.

“I think it would have been a different story in the second half if we did not score at the end of the second half,” Smith said.

Kelly, who led North Penn with three goals, had two of his markers assisted by Diamond, who had three total assists in the win. The attackman said he wasn’t nervous despite going down in the first half and said it was only a matter of time before the Knights got themselves going.

With the way the Knights were dominating the clock, Kelly felt if they kept creating the same chances they would eventually put some away. Kelly scored the second goal of North Penn’s 4-0 run to start the second half and scored with 4:10 left in the fourth quarter to stake the Knights to an 8-7 lead after North Penn forced a turnover and found him in transition.

“Right when we get the ball, we’re usually rushing it but once we know we can possess the ball, we can slow down, relax and run our offense and that’s when we start working together,” Kelly said. “When I make eye contact with Eric, he knows I’m going, we definitely have that chemistry.”

ROUGH ENDING

Princehorn didn’t take anything away from the Knights’ effort but stressed his team did plenty of damage to itself in the loss.

Whether it was careless turnovers, or missed chances to score, the Indians gave away a number of chances to add to their goal total in the first half and again in the second half after they put a stop to North Penn’s run of momentum.

“The other guy can’t score if he doesn’t have the ball and our sport is incredibly unforgiving where you don’t get a guarantee to have the ball back,” Princehorn said. “You get scored on and you lose the faceoff, time keeps ticking away. Faceoffs really went their way tonight, I’m sure time of possession is parallel to that stat and when you don’t have the ball, you can’t score.”

Lucas Yannul slips one in to pull North Penn within 4-3, 10;51 left Q3 pic.twitter.com/PaWPwnDiEV

— Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3) May 4, 2018

After North Penn went up 6-4, the Indians ripped off three straight goals to take a 7-6 lead with 1:20 left in the third quarter. They didn’t score again until the final 30 seconds of the game, again stymied by the same issues they had fought against all night.

“It was a tough one, not going to lie,” Princehorn said. “We knew (North Penn) was good, we knew they were a well-coached team and against a team like that, you can’t make those kind of mistakes.”

North Penn moved up to No. 8 in the District 1-Class 3A power rankings with the win while Souderton remained at No. 16. The top 24 teams in Class 3A make the district tournament.

NORTH PENN 9, SOUDERTON 8
SOUDERTON 3 1 3 1 – 8
NORTH PENN 1 1 5 2 – 9
Goals-Assists: North Penn – Andrew Kelly 3-0, Matthew Dickson 2-0, Dakari Luby 2-0, Lucas Yannul 1-0, Danny Payne 1-0, Eric Diamond 0-3; Souderton – Stephen Blue 4-0, Walker Martin 2-0, Cole Witoslawski 1-0, Brock Azeff 1-0, Adam Booz 0-3.