St Joseph's Prep Hawks

Quaker Valley 5 Mars 1 CORAOPOLIS – Mars is ranked # 2 with a 4-0-1 record and off to its best start in recent memory under Eric Glover. The last time the Planets had a good start was 2003 and they advanced to the Penguins Cup Semi-Finals before being knocked off by Westmont Hilltop. This year’s rendition is a club with speed, balance and size, who can score goals, which has been a missing ingredient over the past couple of seasons. Goaltender Greg Lewis has been solid throughout the early season and looks to be able to lead the Planets on a playoff run. History tells us that Mars will have to overcome Serra and Bishop McCort, who are perennial Class A powers and now Quaker Valley can be counted on as the Quakers have been sniffing the Pennsylvania Cup for a few years and captured their first in 2006. Quaker Valley is ranked # 1 and at 5-0-1 as won five straight after an opening tie against Serra Catholic. Head coach Kevin Quinn is looking forward to defending the title they earned a year ago and now understands the process of winning it all, which is something that his team is poised to do in 2007. The Quakers have all of the ingredients including two game breakers in Colin South and Mikail Lemieux, that no other team in Class A can match up with. The opening period was pretty uneventful except for some solid goaltending from QV’s Zac Zinger and Mars Greg Lewis. The scoreless period featured an equal number of chances at both ends. Mars went on the power play at 12:32 and failed to get many opportunities thanks to some good penalty killing by the Quakers. The Planets went back on the man advantage at 8:16 and at 6:54 of the period Greg Dyer picked off a pass in the neutral zone and fed Mikail Lemieux who buried a wrist shot high over the glove side of Greg Lewis to give QV a 1-0 lead. Mars lost their composure a little and took two bad penalties putting Quaker on the power play in cluding a 5 on 3 for over a minute, which could be a key point in the hockey game. Another penalty at 5:03 put the Planets further in the hole and with just 14 seconds left in the first penalty, Breton McNamara picked up a loose rebound and deposited it into an empty net to make it 2-0. With a 5 on 3 for over 40 seconds, QV went to work again, but Mars defense stiffened and the score remained 2-0. With 1:52 remaining, The Planets would have an opportunity on the man advantage top cut the lead with 1:52 to go and although they picked the physical play, maybe got a little overzealous and took another bad penalty with 42 seconds left negating the power play and a chance to gain some momentum heading to the third period. On to the third period and QV would go on the power play eight seconds in and Mars killed it off. Moments later at 13:27, Colin South found a loose puck and banked it off a Mars defenseman in front and past Lewis to make it three zip. The Planets turned up their game a notch and they finally got a bounce as Sam Mashuda’s shot bounded in the air and behind Zac Zinger to make it 3-1 with 8:40 to go in regulation. Mars started to press and was trying to beat Zinger and the mometum got sidetracked with a penalty with 6:10 to go and the Quakers capitalized as Mikail Lemieux fed a streaking Colin South in the slot who made no mistake with 4:38 to go and QV had some breathing room at 4-1. Moments later at 3:59 Rob Balotsky added a breakaway backhand goal to increase the lead to 5-1. So Quaker Valley maintains their stranglehold on the top spot in Class A,with a rematch awaiting on Janusry 30th at Cranberry BladeRunners, with an impressive 5-1 victory over upstart Mars.