North Penn doesn’t relent in District 1-4A second round win over Pennridge

SPRINGFIELD >> In his playoff career at North Penn, Carter Houlihan had seen too many hot starts fizzle out into a losing result.

The senior forward, who has been a man on a mission this fall, made sure that didn’t happen on Thursday. With the Knights out to a dream start, Houlihan injected life back into his team to close out the first half and again off the tap in the second half.

North Penn didn’t want another protracted battle with Pennridge and following Houlihan’s lead, it didn’t get one at the top-seeded Knights topped the No. 16 Rams 6-0 at La Salle College High School.

“Early goals are so important, especially in the playoffs and we came in today and talked about it in the huddle,” Houlihan said. “These guys hung around with us last time, we didn’t score until the last five minutes and we wanted to change that. We were excited to play and I think we caught them a little off-guard getting the early goal.”

Senior center back Jack Durkin played a pivotal role for North Penn’s offense Thursday. The wide surface of La Salle’s turf allowed both teams to stretch out and the defender played quite a few long balls out of the back that led to scoring chances.

The first came off the tap, when North Penn played it back to him and he bombed it up the field to Houlihan. Houlihan had the ball knock off a defender but opted to save it instead of taking the corner kick and fed a low cross that John Graber tapped in for the lead with 39:42 left in the half.

“We had to play the ball a little quicker to keep us onside and the runners needed to start a little wider,” Houlihan said. “We have the pace up top.”

A free kick by Jamie Stewart was well saved by Owen Gunn, but gave the Knights (18-1-0) a corner. Houlihan’s serve then found Stewart in front and the senior-to-senior connection led to a 2-0 lead just three minutes into the game.

To the Rams’ credit, they were able to settle down after the opening stanza and did start to generate some chances. However, two of their best looks yielded shots over the cross bar and having to chase the game from the outset left North Penn room to chase more goals.

“Too many things didn’t go our way, we would have been loved to have been more competitive, I felt the first two games we were very competitive with them,” Rams coach Pete Valimont said. “They’re a good team with really good players and those really good players stepped up. Not for nothing, we did have a handful of chances but the ball didn’t bounce our way.”

In districts last year, North Penn wasn’t able to sustain those type of starts but Houlihan and the rest of his senior classmates made it a focus to not let that happen again. Even striker Mike Chaffee, sidelined by an illness, made an impassioned pregame talk and the Knights wanted more before the half.

Stewart won a ball on the touchline deep in North Penn’s defensive end, then found Durkin for another long ball. This one found Stewart’s twin brother Ryan and the senior striker converted the breakaway into a 3-0 lead.

Durkin’s howitzer of a leg sprang another run, this time Houlihan the recipient as he pulled away into open turf and finished a shot for the 4-0 advantage with 7:15 left in the half.

“We expected they would want to pack it in, just because they’re in our conference and they know us well and can do that,” Durkin said. “Once we figured out they had the high line, we knew we could play it over the top.

“Most of the time, we just hit it up and Carter finds it.”

Houlihan struck again off the second half tap. The forward won a challenge on the back line, slipped away from a defender, took an extra touch to pull the keeper out of goal then slotted in his second goal 23 seconds into the half.

The final scoreline doesn’t do the Rams (11-8-1) justice for the type of season they had. After losing an influential senior class from last year’s district team, this fall’s group of seniors provided superb leadership and work ethic that filtered down to the underclassmen.

While guys like Dillan Natitus and Bobby Brashear will be missed, the returning players like Aidan Castle and Shane Velez head to the offseason sharpened by another campaign marked with postseason experience.

“We’re bringing back a good portion of our starting lineup and then some, so we feel very confident,” Valimont said. “We have a bunch of underclassmen that have played four district playoff games and not many teams can say that.”

Nate Burnell added the last goal for North Penn.

North Penn will face No. 9 Abington, a late 3-2 winner over No. 8 Spring-Ford, in Saturday’s quarterfinal round. One of those letdown games came last season when the Knights lost a first half lead in an eventual spot kick loss to Central Bucks West, so Houlihan has his sights on another 80-minute effort Saturday.

“We had to come out with a convincing win this year,” Houlihan said. “We don’t want to let the other team adjust. We play our way, we don’t let the other play their way and that’s really important. This year, we realized when you get a goal, you only keep attacking and getting more.”

“We’ve just been focused in,” Durkin said. “In the regular season, we had fun and could be loose in warm-ups. Today, we were locked in and just ready to win.”

NORTH PENN 6, PENNRIDGE 0
PENNRIDGE 0 0 – 0
NORTH PENN 4 2 – 6
Goals: NP – John Graber (Carter Houlihan), Jamie Stewart (Houlihan), Ryan Stewart (Jack Durkin), Houlihan (Durkin), Houlihan, Nate Burnell.