By KEV HUNTER

TOWAMENCIN — With about nine minutes left in the second half of Tuesday night's rainy District One Class 3A Playoff opener between North Penn and Great Valley, it looked for a few tense seconds as though the Knights were going to knock in the go-ahead goal and break what had been a scoreless tie for 71 minutes of soccer.



The Knights scrambled to get their feet on a loose ball out in front of the Patriots' net, and finally get one past Great Valley goalie Dan Shackleton.



"Sean Bonner hit a great shot," North Penn coach Paul Duddy said of his senior midfielder. "It comes off the post, it goes right to Chris Davidson, who had the second crack at it, and he hit it - a good shot, but it hit their keeper."



The Patriots were able to then knock it out of bounds. For Great Valley, it was a big defensive stop. For the Knights, it was an opportunity lost.



As often happens when a team does not take advantage of a scoring chance, the other team takes advantage at the other end, and early in overtime, Great Valley did just that.



Adam Boehr scored the winning goal about six minutes into OT to give the 18th-seeded Patriots a 1-0 upset win over 15th-seeded North Penn, on the turf at North Penn High School.



Boehr raced toward the North Penn net, and as Knights goalie Sean Murphy came out to smother the scoring chance, Boehr was able to get just enough of the ball to knock it past Murphy, and the ball rolled slowly but surely into the net, giving the Pats the win on the road.



"I thought the goalie was gonna come out, but the defender made a mistake, and I just ran onto the ball," Boehr said. "I know I just gotta be in front of the goal, and anything can happen. The ball came out, and I put it away."



For Boehr, a senior, it was his 10th goal of the season, and it came at just the right time in moving the Patriots forward. Great Valley has been a perennial playoff squad out of the Ches-Mont League, having made the state finals four years ago, and districts every year since.



It was a tough defeat for North Penn, also a regular in the postseason.



"Especially for the seniors - that's always a tough way to end it. In districts, of course, if you lose, you're done," Duddy said. "I thought we deserved to at least move onto Thursday's games, but Great Valley found a way to win, and we did not.



Great Valley is a good program and always has been."



The Patriots will now travel to No. 2 Lower Merion, which had a first-round bye.



North Penn tried time and time again to get its first goal on Tuesday. Senior defender Tristain Edwards charged in on one scoring chance, but Shackleton - known to his teammates as "Shack" - was able to smother it.



Edwards also had a nice play on the other end. Great Valley had a corner with 30 seconds left in regulation, but Edwards never gave it a chance to do any damage, using his body to block the kick, about halfway between the corner and the goal.



"I was really pleased with how we played in the second half," Duddy said. "I thought we played a great 40 minutes in the second half, and to not have at least knocked one in is a shame. We have nobody to blame but ourselves."



The good news for the Knights is that more than two thirds of their roster will be back next season.



"I think after a couple days, we'll look back and feel it was a pretty good season," Duddy said. "We had a lot of new faces, played a lot of underclassmen. But it certainly stings to not be moving on."



Great Valley 1,



North Penn 0 (OT)



#18 Great Valley 0 0 1 - 1



#15 North Penn 0 0 0 - 0



Overtime



GV: Adam Boehr, 46th minute



Shots: Great Valley 8; North Penn 8



Saves: Dan Shackleton (GV) 5; Sean Murphy (NP) 3