North Penn battles past Archbishop Wood

amarcus@montgomerynews.

com After shaking hands with North Penn after Saturday night’s non-league game, Archbishop Wood peeled off and took a knee around the 20 yard line to listen to what coach Steve Devlin had to say. As he has done DIWHU HvHUy JDPH Ln KLV fiUVW fivH yHDUV wLWK WKH 9LNLnJV, the speech was quick and to the point. But the topic of the talk was something he has not had to discuss often.

It was the 72nd game for coach Devlin with Wood and the Knights’ 24-10 win made it the 11th time since 2007 he had express discontent in the performance. It was WKH 9LNLnJV’ fiUVW OoVV VLnFH week one of 2011 (against Pittsburgh Central Catholic). If the defending state champs forgot what it felt like to be on the wrong end of the score, a scoreless second half gave an antagonizing feeling they have learned to live without.

“Our goal this season was not to beat North Penn,” Devlin said. “Our goal is to win a championship. We see where we are and what we need to get better at. HopeIuOOy wH FDn fix LW.”

The Vikings did not expect to mercy-rule the defending Class 4A state runner-ups, like they have done to their last 14 opponents, but they did expect to execute and push their winning streak to 16 games. A Josh Messina touchdown and Nick Visco fiHOG JoDO wDV WKH VWDUW WKHy were expecting. Everything that followed was not.

“We play these games because we want to play good opponents and get better,” Knights’ coach Dick Beck said. “We had some kids grow up tonight.”

After holding the Knights to four yards of offense in WKH fiUVW KDOI WKH 9LNLnJV kicked off to start the third TuDUWHU DnG .yOH 0DyfiHOG showed what he can with opportunity. After only two FDUULHV Ln WKH fiUVW KDOI, WKH senior running back carried the Knights to 24 unDnVwHUHG SoLnWV. 0DyfiHOG rushed for 134 yards and had scores of 12 and 40 yards. The forty-yarder came on a fourth-and-one pitch play.