TOWAMENCIN – With the chaotic nature of the shooting circle, figuring out the right place to be in it at the right time is a beneficial skill in field hockey.

Twice Thursday night, North Penn’s Paige Shearer found herself in the correct spot and capitalized on both, scoring a pair of goals to help the Knights earn their first SOL Colonial Division win by topping visiting Pennridge 4-2.

“Just following it and seeing where I think it’s going,” said Shearer, a senior forward. “I don’t know, just knowing. I’ve played for a while so just knowing the patterns and how my teammates are moving the ball. I’ve played with them so much so just knowing where they’re going to put it and I can trust them and build on them to be where I need to be as long as they’re where they need to.”

Shearer broke a 1-1 tie at 10:38 in the third quarter, getting a rebound during a penalty corner and sending a shot into the cage. Kylie Barwis put North Penn up 3-1 less than two minutes later but the Rams pulled back within a goal on Deegan Smith’s tally at 7:25.

The score remained 3-2 until the first minute of the fourth when Shearer tipped in a shot from Barwis to make it 4-2 and the Knights maintained that margin the rest of the way to snap a two-game skid.

“Paige, she’s a creative player and she’s dynamic and she can get her stick on the ball in the circle really well,” North Penn coach Shannon McCracken said. “This was her first goal tonight this season and she’s had a lot of great shots in the last couple games and stuff like that but it just wasn’t finding the back of the cage but tonight she did a great job.”

The contest was slated for a 7 p.m. start but pushed ahead to 6:30 in an attempt to avoid the storms that rolled through the area. That did not work as intended, as heavy rain hit to wipe out the earlier start but the weather cleared up in time to have the game proceed.

“I really thought we were rescheduling it for a while,” Shearer said. “But I’m glad that we didn’t, I’m glad we got it in tonight.”

Sam Stone scored the first goal for the Knights (2-3-0, 1-2-0 division), who outshot the Rams 19-7 and out-cornered them 11-3.

Pennridge goalkeeper Charlotte Gozzard made 11 saves while NP goalie Kiley Moister had five saves.

The Rams (2-4-0, 0-4-0) opened the season with 1-0 wins over Dock Mennonite and Council Rock South but have yet to find success in the SOL Colonial. Pennridge finished the first half of division play Monday hosting Central Bucks South at 7 p.m.

North Penn lost its season-opener to Owen J. Roberts before a 3-0 win at Neshaminy then began its division slate falling to Central Bucks West and Central Bucks South, losing the latter 5-2 Tuesday after scoring the first two goals. The Knights visit Souderton 6:30 p.m. Monday.

“We’re a little bit young and inexperienced this year in some places so I think we’re going to have some growing pains a little bit,” McCracken said. “But when you have a schedule like we do in our conference and then I like to schedule harder non-league games, strong teams in the district. I mean, if you want to be good, you got to play the good teams, you know.”

“So we like our schedule, we like to play top teams and every game we just want to improve and get better.”

It took until the second quarter for Thursday night’s first goal, Pennridge taking a 1-0 lead at 12:13 when Kayla Verespy knocked a shot into the cage.

North Penn, however, answered quickly on a corner, the ball getting to Stone in front and the sophomore midfielder putting it in at 10:10 with Shearer recording the assist.

“We had a slow come out after that rain delay and I think we just need to put our foot on the gas and once we did we just didn’t stop,” Shearer said. “And I think it was a really good team win. We really connected and both our offense and our defense was just really solid today and I’m really proud of us.”

The Knights took the lead for good at 10:38 in the third on a corner – a shot from the top of the circle was blocked but Shearer got the rebound and connected on a shot.

“It came out and there was an open net,” Shearer said. “So I just put it right in.”

North Penn extended its advantage to 3-1 shortly after as Barwis found the back of the cage at 8:45.

“We had possession of the ball a lot,” McCracken said. “We had more shots, more corners and sometimes in games like that, that can be challenging, cause it’s hard to push through some things cause they were packing the circle and it was kind of challenging to get around them. So I think that third quarter was just exciting to get more shots off.”

The Rams responded just 80 seconds later, Smith getting a shot past the keeper at 7:25 to make it 3-2.

The Knights, however, regained the two-goal edge the first minute of the fourth, Shearer collecting her second goal by getting a stick on a Barwis shot to tip it in at 14:14.

“Ky shot it from the circle,” Shearer said. “And I just tipped it a little around the goalie’s pad so it wouldn’t go right into her.”