The North Penn Knight’s varsity football team has gotten off to a less than stellar start to begin the season. The Knights are 1-2 at the beginning of conference play, struggling to meet expectations, and hoping to turn things around in a hurry.
“We [have] struggled defensively,” said head coach Dick Beck.
In a highly anticipated first week matchup against La Salle, the Knights started off well and went into halftime with an 11 point lead, but La Salle came out of the half firing and came back to win 44-27.
“Any time you lose to a team three times in two seasons, it’s extremely frustrating,” said senior quarterback Corey Ernst following the tough loss.
In week two, the Knights traveled to Souderton Area High School to take on cross town rivals Lansdale Catholic.
The Knights rebounded in a big way to win 36-6. They even had a near shutout going until LC scored late in the 4th quarter.
“It [was] good to get a win under our belt,” said senior Ralph Reeves after the game.
The team was hoping to carry the momentum from the win to another tough matchup against a St. Joes Prep led by the multi-threat quarterback, Skyler Mornhinweg, who has verbally committed to playing at Penn State.
Similar to the La Salle game, the Knights started off strong in the first half and took a 19-14 lead into half time.
However, the similarities to the La Salle game continued in a painful way for North Penn as they once again gave up a halftime lead for good to lose the game, this time 51-33.
The Knights now have to play catch up if they want to get back on track to win the state title. If the team wants to make that run, they must make some improvements in several areas.
“Number 1, we got to get more experience in the secondary and stop turning the ball over,” said Beck.
The Knights have committed 7 turnovers in their 2 losses this year.
If the Knights can meet their coach’s goal, then they could very well find themselves playing for the state championship.
Beck’s expectations have not changed and remain hopeful, despite the rough start.
“Hopefully [we will] compete for league championship, and go deep in the playoffs.”
Jewel Rama • Jan 27, 2012 at 11:36 pm
This was the turning point of our season right here, it wasnt the LC game it was the game afterwards, i mean lets face it North Penn is never going to loose to LC nor are we ever going to play them again. But they helped us get the ball rolling and we just went on cruise control for the rest of the season. It was hard work followed by hard work followed by a big win come pay day. It was great, i can say that.