St Joseph's Prep Hawks

DELMONT – Bethel Park has won three consecutive Pennsylvania Class AAA State Championships and while many Junior Varsities and Freshman team are suiting up for playoffs for the first time and will hang banners about their JV and Freshman Championships, they need to take a seminar about what Junior Varsity and Freshman hockey SHOULD be about which is a training ground for the Varsity Program. Invited speakers to this seminar should be Paul Taibi, the Mt Lebanon head coach, who spent several years quietly grooming players who were the building blocks leading the Hawks to those three straight championships. Coach Taibi is building a class program at Mt Lebanon, a team that lost something like 14 seniors from a Penguin Cup finalist from a year ago and has only three seniors on a team, which has matured beyond its years in just a few months and will be knocking on that door for the next few years with great young talent. In fact, I had to go back on the ole’ Pa Hockey Master Schedule just to figure out that the Blue Devils last lost in February on the 10th to Franklin Regional 7-4 and has not lost since in an undefeated stretch that included Bethel Park, Cathedral Prep, and Baldwin. Now Taibi doesn’t know who Gary Swingle is, but he would see a lot of similarities in the former Franklin coach who was a similar architect, who entered the Franklin Program in the early 90’s and helped build a Junior Varsity and Freshman programs. Those programs produced WPIHL AA Championships and a four-year run to the Penguin Cup finals from 1992-1996 and continued the building process until the Panthers moved to the Center Ice Arena in 1998. In the 1997-1998, FR fielded two freshman teams with 37 players and rather than stacking one freshman team, ‘the General’ as he was known put the odds on one side and the evens on the other side and those two teams lost a combined two games out of 30. The best of that group have developed since into the 2003 edition of the Franklin Regional Panthers. Most recently, coach Jim Damp has taken this talented group and they have molded into a real contender for Class AAA and have opened some eyes around the Western Pa hockey circles, with big late season wins over Lebanon and Bethel Park. Some of the Panthers were looking to erase memories of last seasons ending a double overtime defeat at the hands of North Allegheny. Goaltending dominated the first period as Pa Hockey Top 5 Freshman phenom Matt Vaughn stopped Luke ‘now you see him now you don’t’ DeLorenzo, who danced around the Mt Lebo defense at 13:15. The Blue Devils went on the power play at 11:57 and pressure Franklin to try to get that all-important first goal, but Brandon Stallard made several key stops including an excellent save on Chad Uddstrom at 10:52. Stallard then stopped Eric Sloan and Uddstrom again at 7:21 as Mt Lebo could not capitalize o some excellent scoring chances. Late in the opening period, Sloan was in on the breakaway but could not beat Stallard and the game was scoreless after one period. Mt Lebanon opened the second period much like the first but could not beat Stallard, who stoned Billy Leckenby at 13:30. Franklin Regional counter attacked and Luke ‘now you see him now you don’t’ DeLorenzo but Matt Vaughn on Route 22 going West on a spectacular move and beat the freshman goaltender on the forehand to make it 1-0 at 13:19. The Panthers came right back on the same shift as Vaughn made the initial save on DeLorenzo and Lou Levine pounced on the rebound and banged it home to give the packed house at Delmont on the Franklin side something to cheer about and a 2-0 lead at 12:50. Still on that extended shift, Delorenzo made a great drop pass to Mike Roth, who buried a wrist shot upstairs on the glove side at 12:12 and all the sudden Franklin led 3-0. Now many of you may not remember the Penguin Cup Semi-Final at Rostraver in 1997, where Mt Lebanon had a 4-0 lead at the end of two periods only to watch it evaporate into a 5-4 Bethel win and an eventual State Championship for the Hawks. A game for the ages that night and one of the first thoughts that came to my mind in this game and maybe its was the calmness as Luke ‘now you see him now you don’t’ DeLorenzo, exited the building off to that all-important Hornets practice with 9:15 left in the second period of a do or die playoff game. You could almost see Paul Taibi, grinding his teeth and although he would never say maybe thinking it that Mt Lebanon would love to come back and win this one and make a real statement. Well, Taibi’s heart warmed a little bit as Eric Sloan scored on a wrist shot upstairs at 8:39 to get Mt Lebanon on the board 3-1. Mike Roth came right back for the Panthers just thirty seconds later to extend the lead to 4-1 beating Vaughn on the wrist shot. Stallard made a great blocker save on Leckenby at 3:29 and on Sloan with just :18 seconds left, stacking his pads and FR took a 4-1 lead to the intermission. On to the third period and Franklin went into that dreaded prevent defense a little too early as they failed to gain territorial advantage. The Blue Devils gain some momentum and Tony Valerino banged home a Bill Leckenby rebound on the backhand at 10:44 and Lebo was back within striking distance at 4-2. Less than a minute later, Leckenby scored on a long blast after a Franklin turnover at blueline which beat Stallard on the stick side and all the sudden it was 4-3 and all Mt Lebanon. The Blue Devils were all over FR at this point and Eric Sloan just missed at 4:40, but Dan Weilin tied the game with exactly four minutes remaining on a great move beating Stallard on the backhand and roofing it upstairs. The game headed to overtime as Mt Lebanon outshot Franklin Regional 32-23 through regulation. Franklin was awarded a rare power play in overtime [Oh by the way …the officiating in this one was outstanding with Chet Steen and Norm Faas] but Mt Lebanon survived two FR chances as Michael Jordan blocked a Jimmie Daugherty shot at 7:45 and Matt Vaughn stopped Joey Ferrairo from point blank at 7:01. Mt Lebanon went on the PP at 6:07 and almost won it but Eric Sloan’s blast hit the crossbar at 4:10. Then Vaughn stoned Franklin Regional as he stopped Joey Ferrairo again with 2:40 left in the first OT and robbed Jimmie Daugherty with just 5 seconds left in OT # 1. On to Overtime # 2 and after confusion with the league rep who didn’t know the playoff rules and probably was never provided a copy of them, the game moved on as the teams switched ends. Franklin came out early and made it happen as Mike Roth gathered a rebound after Vaughn made the initial save on Daugherty and lofted into the empty net over a fallen Vaughn and Franklin Regional would advance on to face Bethel Park, which will be a rematch of a late season game at Center Ice and will have a lot more riding on it come next Wednesday as we move on to Rostraver and the Penguin Cup semis. For Mt Lebanon, a great year and a stepping stone for the future as hopefully this group of Blue Devils will remember this game and let it help fuel a Penguin Cup run over the next few years !