Sunday Night Soccer: North Defeats Roman 3-0

Now I know what all the excitement is about for Monday night football as North visited Roman to open its campaign as defending Catholic League and City Champs. Actually, North travelled a shorter distance as visitor since the game was hosted by Lighthouse Soccer Club in northeast Philadelphia. The reason for Sunday night was not because of a television contract, rather the weather played havoc with those teams that play on natural grass on Friday with rain up and down the east coast. Now why Roman used this site to play us, that is another question.

Actually, the Cahillites came out strong as if the field was their home turf from the opening tap, putting pressure on the inexperienced back line of North, but the boys were more than equal to the task and soon established midfield play. Now can anyone tell me what a Cahillite is? Now I know that answer but I am just wondering in there are any other PCL historians in our midst.

THE GAME

North's backs, junior sweeper Dan Venuto, senior Mark Brown and junior Tyler Wolfinger thwarted the Roman flank play time and time again. If they missed, keeper John McCarthy was there to care of the situation. With four minutes till half North struck for the its first league goal of the season. Senior captain Ira Woodruff fought off a host of Roman defenders with help from Khristian Hall and Pablo Martinez and put the Falcons ahead from six yards. Then, with only seconds remaining in the half, Woodruff again penetrated the box on a break from the left flank and found senior midfielder Dan Micucci steaming into range with a crafty ball from the side of his boot. Micucci, the pride of Port Richmond, made no mistake from three yards. North took a 2-0 advantage into halftime.

Second half action saw a slightly different style from the Falcons. Senior back Tyler Ward and junior Kyle McCabe, the stopper and midfielder respectively controlled anything Roman attempted to do in the central third of the field. McCabe later slipped a ball to all-Catholic Khristian Hall who put the match out of reach.

The Falcons shared the ball for the remainder of the second half and created several chances with Micucci missing on two separate runs from his flank spot and junior Tommy Goodyear smashing one wide of the far bar. Hall continued to create havoc linking up with Christian Cepeda and Pablo Martinez running out of the central midfield. Sophomore Matt Martinez played equally well in midfield and on the front line distributing and holding possession for North.

Four year varsity goal keeper, John McCarthy, kept his first clean sheet for the 09 regular season with five saves, clearing all Roman set piece attempts.

North Catholic will host St. Joseph's Prep on Tuesday afternoon at 5 pm at ARCHBISHOP RYAN. Come on out and see great soccer action and support the boys.

SIGHTINGS

While it was a decent crowd to root the Falcons on, I have to apologize since most of my time was with the JV squad, who vanquished Roman by the score of 3-1, so I did not get to see many faces in the crowd or SuperFans. However, one SuperFan that I did see was John "Baines" Jacober who was straddling North's bench for much of the 2nd half. He did tell me that legendary SuperFan, Mr. Tim Murhpy was also in attendance and I would have to wager that Mr. Falcon himself, Mr. Mike Ferris was somewhere in attendance and probably seated right next to Mr. Murphy, at least that is what I want to believe.

Former Frankford great, Mr. Charlie Oswald was there as well. Those who don't know Charlie, he was a star at Frankford in the 60s and wears that proud on his sleeve. He always rambles about how that while at Frankford, his team never lost to North. Charlie was and is still responsible for taking care of the fields at Lighthouse. He came up tonight and lined both fields for the game. Thanks Charlie! Also seen lurking, was Mr. Jerry Blaney. Jerry helps run Lighthouse, is a 75 Grad from North and played on some great teams and allows North to play at Lighthouse. Thanks to you Jerry.

One person I didn't see was our Athletic Director but maybe he was there incognito, it was a weekend though.

Anyway, a good start to hopefully a good season. Send us your thoughts and visit us also at www.northcatholicsoccer.com