HATFIELD-In the third matchup of the season for the North Penn ice hockey squad, a shutout performance by goaltender, Nick Ebbinghaus, two power play kills by the Knights’ defense, and 10 total goals put up by the offense led the Knights to another game in the win column.

In the Wednesday night square off between the visiting William Tennent Panthers (0-3), and home North Penn Knights (2-0-1), a 10-0 win for the Knights in a mercy rule win is all she wrote in the game held at Hatfield Ice. With three players on the Knights roster (Tyler Greenstein, Josh Kaufhold and Jeromy Porubski) tallying up 2 goals each in the contest, the Knights would need only 2 periods of play to secure the win over the Panthers. 

“We continue to just try and get better and better every game. We had a great game last week against Pennridge and we came in here tonight really focusing on jumping on them early, got our offense going right from the beginning and put together all around good effort. Tyler has been playing great for us all year and Jeromy chipping in with 2 and Josh with 2 as well, they’ve been doing a great job overall and we just want all 3 lines contributing into the attack and we did that tonight,” explained Knights head coach, Kevin Vaitis.

The Knights scoring frenzy would be kicked off by Jake Nelson, who would poke in a rebound that came out of the glove of Panthers’ goaltender, Trey Smith. The Knights would follow up the early tally with a deek move goal by Nate Oh, that put North Penn up over the Panthers 2-0 with under 8 minutes of play in the contest.

From then on out it would be a offensive showoff performance from the Knights as within the next 10 minutes, 5 goals would be put up on to the scoreboard, that gave the Knights an 8-0 lead heading into the 2nd period. A wrist shot bullet from Nick Rowland, Tyler Greenstein bottom shelf forehand goal, Nate Oh feed to Jeromy Porbuski on a cross crease connection, wrist shot follow up top shelf goal by Tony Tuozzo, a Greenstein 2nd goal on the night following a blocked shot by Thomas Boyle, and a Porubski connection with the back of the net would surge the Knights into 2nd period with already a commanding lead over William Tennent.

“We played hard from the initial drop of the puck, we cycled the puck well and ended up finding the back of the net a ton. We always try and spread the puck around and get everyone involved which gets everyone going,”stated Knights junior, Tyler Greenstein.

The beginning to the 2nd period would be similar to the 1st as North Penn would connect with the back of the net 2 more times, and North Penn had a 10-0 lead, with under 8 minutes still to play in the period. Knights junior, Josh Kaufhold would pick up his first of two goals on the night on a tic-tac-toe connection between juniors Greenstein and Kaufhold, leaving the right side of the net wide open for Josh to tack on to a Knights 8-0 lead. Followed up by the Kaufhold goal, with over 10 minutes still on the clock in the 2nd period, was Josh, who would find the back of the net again on a redirection following a slap shot from sophomore, Luke Van Why.

“We as a team have been playing together for a long time, everyone contributed on every part and a complete team effort is always good and helps to a win any night, stated junior, Josh Kaufhold.

With only 8 shots put on him in between the goalposts, Knights goaltender, Nick Ebbinghaus, put up another stellar goaltending performance against the opposition when the very few Panthers shots were put on him in  the contest.

“[Our defense] played really good and even though it may not be as fun to be a goalie to experience a little amount a shots, it’s great to play in a game when the team backs up you and it shows what we work on in practice and how we look to dominate,” said freshmen, Nick Ebbinghaus.

The clock would be left to run for the rest of the 2nd period, and the Knights earned the mercy rule win over William Tennent by a score of 10-0.

“We have a big game next week against CB South and we are looking for a little bit of revenge so from this win we just look to continue our attack in the offensive zone and great defensive efforts. We are playing good hockey right now and we got to build on it next week,” stated coach Vaitis.

The Knights are on the road next week, the 21st, in a Thanksgiving eve game at Revolution Ice Gardens in a matchup against the Central Bucks South Titans for the Knights fourth game of the season.