Falcon Booters Kick-off Season

Bucks County Plays Host for First Scrimmage

On Wednesday, your Falcons officially broke camp and travelled to Newtown, Bucks County to scrimmage the Council Rock Indians. For those unfamiliar with Newtown, it is a bucolic community that includes farms, primarily single family homes, a quaint borough for shopping and some small industry. You might describe it as somewhat Rockwellian. Just to give you an idea of the difference in environments, CR-North High School's athletic fields encompass two softball, two baseball, lacrosse, two soccer and one, stadium football fields. Each of these fields in impeccably maintained. The soccer field in particular was like playing of the greens of Torresdale-Frankford Country Club. Compare this to our home pitch, which we lovingly refer to as Torresdale and Afghanistan. Right now, the grass is about 8 inches high. In fact, its so high that we asked Bob Wheeler of Juniata Golf and Country Club if he could help us out and send some high powered mowers. Bob of course did so but each of the mowers broke down, choking on the grass, crabgrass and weeds on the field.

CR-North is coached by Mr. Wendell Berris, a 2000 graduate of North and a member of the 1999-2000 Catholic League champion squad. This is Wendell's second year at the helm of CR-North, which was State Champion three years ago. It is a historically strong program lifted by students from the CRUSA and YMS programs. This year's Indian team is centered on 16 seniors. It competes in the very difficult Suburban One Conference that includes Neshaminy, Pennsbury, and North Penn (coached by North Alum Paul Duddy)to name a few.

What is nice in scheduling programs where you know one another and you are facing top notch competition is the hospitality these programs offer. On Wednesday's game, the parent's booster club treated everyone to pizza and refreshments.

It was a hot day, with a slight breeze that made it palpable. This was North's first real action of the year. This year's team will be lead by its seniors: John McCarthy, Juan Pablo Martinez, Ira Woodruff Tyler Ward. Sophomore striker Khristian Hall will also be a huge part of any success the team achieves.

CR-North was all it was hyped to be. They were fit, disciplined and strong from back to front. The first ten minutes or so, the Indians had North on its heels a bit. About 20 minutes into the game, the right flank of CR-North played a ball into the box that our backs were not able to handle allowing an Indian striker to go it alone on McCarthy. McCarthy gave a great attempt but CR-North was up 1-0.

From this point on, North relaxed and began getting confident. Hall and Martinez were able to control and hold the ball while the mid-field joined the action. Any lost balls were controlled by Jr. Dan Venuto and Soph Matt Martinez in the middle. Sr. Mark Brown gave a great effort as North's left back. Coach Brindisi showed confidence in his younger players by inserting Justin Hiltwine and Kevin Lockhart and giving them meaningful minutes through most of the game. Justin played outside midfield, while Kevin patrolled the left back position. Both Justin and Kevin are freshman this year. Jr. Kyle McCabe came on as a sub in the midfield and played very well.

In the 50th minute, McCarthy possessed an errant ball and found Matt Martinez alone in the midfield. Once controlled, Matt saw Hall isolated on an Indian back about 50 yards from goal. Matt played the ball beyond the back and Hall was able to muscle and one time an awkward shot passed the CR-North keeper who came 20 yards out from his goal.

North continued to control the play and had several great opportunities to take the lead but misfired each time. In the waning minutes, CR-North created a number of chances but McCarthy was equal to the tasks and Venuto cleared a ball off our goal line on a corner kick as time expired.

It was a great effort for the start of the 2009 season. Come watch your Falcons attempt to defend their Catholic League and City Championships. The schedule is out on www.northcatholicsoccer.com.