St Joseph's Prep Hawks

Plum 4 State College 2 GREENSBURG – State College enters the 2006 – 2007 season fresh off the Open Division Championship defeating Carrick at Mellon Arena. With the largest enrollment in all of Western Pennsylvania hockey, rather than play in Class AAA, the Icers choose to participate against Class A doormats like Ferndale, Johnstown, Valley, and former AAA turnstile Woodland Hills, who are lucky to even have teams let alone compete at ANY level in the PIHL ‘Glorified JV’ Open Division. State College has faired well in the GCC Invitational defeating 3-time AAA East Division Champions Penn Trafford 3-0, Franklin Regional 3-0 and host Greensburg CC 4-2, while dropping a 4-2 decision to Greensburg Salem, who has decided to return to Class AA and play competitive hockey. Plum had a rough season playing in Class AAA in 2005-06 and head coach Sean Keller has remained on top assist Plum Alum Joe Piccolino, who has taken over the reigns of the Plum program. The Mustangs are coming off a 0-2-1 finish of the stiff competition at the St Margaret’s Fall Face-Off in a bracket with Penguin Cup AAA Finalist North Allegheny and AA powers Thomas Jefferson and Montour, which was the necessary pieces to the puzzle, which will help them compete at the Class AAA level. The Stangs have a little chip on their shoulder after last years wild card playoff loss to Baldwin and are looking to challenge for the East Division title with Penn Trafford this season. Plum defeated Fox Chapel, Kiski, Woodland Hills and tied Latrobe 2-2 in this years tournament and advanced into the Semi-Finals for the 6th consecutive year but has yet to capture the GCC Invitational Title. At 6:33 of the opening period, Ben Colosmo picked up his own rebound and beat State College goaltender Mac Weiler on the ice through the 5-hole to give the Mustangs a 1-0 lead. Plum kept up the pressure and worked the puck through to the slot and Andy Weston buried a wrist shot on the stick side of Weiler to give Plum a 2-0 lead. Shots on goal for the first period were seven apiece. After three quick shots turned aside by John Bronder, State College went on the power play at 10:07, but John Bronder was equal to the task and the Mustangs kept their 2-0 advantage. The Icers continued to pour on the shots and finally scored as David Scultz scored on a wrist shot high to the stick side at 5:26 to cut the advantage to 2-1. Plum took advantage of a 4-4 situation as Ben Colosmo buried and slap shot high over the glove hand of Weiler from the right point to give the Mustangs a 3-1 with 2:04 left in the seconds period. Ben Colosmo buried a Chad Covol rebound with 11:51 remaining in regulation to give the Mustangs a 4-1 lead and complete the hat trick. John Bronder kept State College off the board stopping 21 of 23 Shots to help the Mustangs advance to the finals of the Greensburg CC Invitational, allowing a meaningless goal to the Icer’s Robbie Holdcroft at the buzzer to make the final count different, but the outcome was a Plum victory.