It was a big goal, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.
Senior Patrick Fannon found the back of the net with 18:19 remaining in the second half to lift the Pennridge boys soccer team to a 1-0 non-league victory over Quakertown on Monday night at Quakertown’s Alumni Field.
“This is one of the biggest goals I’ve ever scored in terms of the result,” Fannon said.
“I’d had a rough game up to that point, so it felt good to put that one away. This is a big win. It’s a huge rivalry in every sport, but especially football and us. It’s Quakertown. You’ve got to come out and win.
“I think the key to the game was us winning the 50-50 balls and the head balls and keeping the pressure on them. I thought we worked really hard on both ends of the field. Our back line did a great job.”
The win stopped a three-game skid for the Rams.
“I think this is a monumental turning point for us,” Fannon said. “We had three one-goal losses last week but I think this is where we turn it around.
“We’re pretty young this year. We graduated a lot of guys from last year’s team so a lot of these guys are first-year varsity players. We’ve had a rough season, results-wise, but I really think in these past couple of weeks we’ve played a great brand of soccer and I think that’s going to start showing in our results.”
The Rams held a 10-4 advantage in shots on goal.
Pennridge goaltender Gavin Dimmick made three saves.
Both teams had opportunities in the first half, but they went into the intermission scoreless.
“It was tough to go into halftime with nothing because we felt like we had chance after chance and couldn’t put one in,” Fannon said.
It was a tough loss for Panthers’ senior captain Carter Tull.
“This is a big rivalry so this game was important to us,” Tull said. “I knew it was going to be a close game. I was hoping it would be 1-0 us, but it didn’t work out that way.
“The frustrating thing is that we had our chances. The goal was right there, and we didn’t finish. Almost every game is like that for us. It’s in our hands, and we can’t put it away. That’s been a big theme this year and it’s something we address every day in practice.
“Almost all of our games are one-goal games. Our defense is great. It’s just that one final piece that we can’t put it away. If we can improve that in the next couple of games, we should be in good shape.
“This is my senior year and I really want us to accomplish the things I think we can accomplish.”
Jacob Mosser made six saves in goal for Quakertown.
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