WARRINGTON – The North Penn Knights suffered their first loss of the season Friday night in a hard-fought meeting with fellow undefeated SOL National team, the Central Bucks South Titans. With first place in the conference at stake, the two sides duked it out in a gritty, sloppy game, and CB South ultimately pulled out the win 14-6 in front of their home crowd.
Knights’ head coach Dick Beck acknowledged that this was a tough loss for the players and a group with high playoff aspirations, but maintained that they have to just keep looking forward.
“We’re only worried about winning next week, that’s all we care about,” Beck reinforced.
Both teams struggled to find momentum to start the game, as CB South turned the ball over on downs on the first drive of the game, followed by a quick North Penn punt. South pushed the ball downfield with purpose before being stuffed once again on 4th down, resulting in another turnover on downs. The Knights also mirrored their first possession, as the CB South pass rush continued to terrorize the offensive line and quarterback Matt Bucksar.
South made another imposing march towards the Knights’ endzone, highlighted by a deep shot down the sideline by Titans’ quarterback Owen Pinkerton to wide receiver Danny Gies that put them on the North Penn 18-yard line. However, the defense continued to stand their ground in the red zone, forcing yet another turnover on downs as North Penn took over on their own 27 to close out the first quarter.
The excitement was short-lived, as another quarterback pressure by CB South’s edge rushers led to a sack on 3rd down that brought the Knights back to their own 20-yard line and North Penn was forced to punt for the third time in three possessions. The stout North Penn defense could only stave off the Titans for so long, as another long ball put South on the Knights’ 15-yard line, this time to tight end Dan McCusker. The Knights looked like they were going to get out of the drive without giving up a touchdown, but on 4th down and 10 Owen Pinkerton took the direct snap and ran it in past the pylon for the first points of the game with 6:34 left on the clock in the 2nd quarter.
However, North Penn refused to go down without a fight and clawed their way toward the Titans’ endzone with the 1st half clock winding down. After failing to get the ball over the goal line for 3 downs, the Knights settled for a field goal to enter the second half only trailing 7-3.
North Penn received the kickoff at the start of the third quarter and began mobilizing their offense toward midfield. Unfortunately for the Knights, a slightly underthrown deep ball by Matt Bucksar to running back Josiah Coleman was picked off by Titans cornerback Matt Harmon. South couldn’t muster up anything against the solid North Penn defense once again and punted from inside their own 20. The Knights responded by attacking the Titans’ secondary through the air and set themselves up for another chip-shot field goal to cut the lead to 1, at 7-6.
South wouldn’t let their lead be threatened that easily, though, and steamrolled their way to the North Penn endzone on a drive spearheaded by running back Braylen Cape, who punched it in from 5 yards out for the Titans’ second touchdown and put them up 14-6 to begin the 4th quarter. After another lackluster possession on offense by the Knights, the Titans looked ready to put the game away for good. However, a bad drop deep in North Penn territory by wide receiver Anthony Castagna was followed by a huge fumble recovery by Knights linebacker Christian Johns-Wallace the next play to give North Penn the ball with 7 minutes left in the game. But, even for as good as the North Penn defense was performing, the Titan’s pass rush continued to put their stamp on the game, as linebacker Jim Wade brought down Matt Bucksar on 4th down for a North Penn turnover.
Punting was not part of the Titans’ philosophy for the night, as South turned the ball right back over on downs on the Knights’ 30-yard line. North Penn tried to string together some plays to get themselves back in the game, but the Titan’s defense snuffed out any retaliation by the offense, sacking Matt Bucksar on back-to-back plays to turn the ball back over to CB South in their own territory.
The defense stood their ground once again, forcing the second fumble of the game, and handed the ball to Bucksar at the North Penn 20 for the final drive of the game with a minute left on the clock. It seemed like the Knights had finally found life in their offense, making it past the 50-yard line with enough time to tie the game. However, a deep pass that would’ve put North Penn inside CB South’s 20-yard line was erased by a penalty, and with 10 seconds left a loose ball by Bucksar bounced all the way back to the Knights’ 30-yard line as the clock struck zero, sealing the wild victory for the Titans.
The Knights’ usually explosive offense was kept quiet all night.
“I agree [the offense wasn’t able to get into their groove tonight]… just not good enough on offense,” Knights head coach Dick Beck said .
He had nothing but praise for the defensive showing by the Knights, though.
“I thought the defense played really hard,” Beck said. “They played really hard, really fought, y’know, keeping [CB South] out of the endzone, so I was proud of the defense.”
Despite the loss, the Knights (6-1) remain in a good position heading into the home stretch of the regular season. All three of their remaining games are against conference opponents, including another important away matchup with Central Bucks West on October 18th at War Memorial Field. The Knights play their final home game at 7pm Thursday, October 10th against Pennsbury, who is 1-3 in conference play and 3-4 overall, as North Penn looks to bounce back and end the season strong. The Knights are currently ranked 3rd in the District 1 rankings behind CB South and Downingtown West, and just two slots ahead of CB West.