St Joseph's Prep Hawks

Pine Richland 6 Greensburg Salem 2 GREENSBURG – The Greensburg Salem hockey program went through quite a transition over the past Years going from the Indiana High School Hockey League to the Open Division and now into Class AA. The nice part about the re-birth of the Golden Lions is that they now get to compete for a real prize with Penguins Cup eligibility for the first time in several years. The downfall is that they have to deal with the mounds of paperwork that exists in the PIHL, who tell everyone how they treat all of the teams equally, but people who know better know the real story. So as the story would go, Greensburg Salem was really enjoying their return to Varsity hockey and after Monday’s victory over Canevin would have entered tonight’s game against Pine Richland with a 7-2-1 record and a # 2 ranking in the latest Post Gazette rankings and a big match-up with the defending State Champions. The Golden Lions [again this is second hand] showed honesty and integrity but pointing out a paperwork error on their USA Hockey Roster to the Villans of the PIHL and for their good deed were rewarded with two forfeits, a 7 game suspension for Head Coach Anthony DeFazio and a meeger $ 1,200 fine from the blood thirsty league management. If you live in the South or are one of the Villans favorite team status, this is termed an administrative error, but anyone other than that is made an example of, which North Allegheny also found out this week. Pine Richland is ranked # 1 and has a perfect 9-0-0 record under Bobby ‘Boomer’ Kennedy and it really looks than this team is a step and a half ahead of Class AA competition, which means the Rams are a good bet to repeat as Penguins Cup Champions in 2007 and as Pennsylvania State Class AA champions in late March. But anyone who has been around hockey, like Geoff and Jared Bagnato’s dad Mike Bagnato, who played on a couple of North Catholic teams, who cruised through the regular season and then got knocked off in the playoffs. I am not predicting that, but when the bell rings on March 1, Pine Richland will face some battle tested AA teams, who combined with a hot goaltender could end any teams season, which the Rams are well aware of and why they are not letting the foot off of the gas pedal. So before an intimate gathering at Kirk Nevin, it didn’t take the Rams long to get on the board in this contest as George Saad’s attempted pass deflected off a Salem defenseman and behind Shane Talarico just 33 seconds into the game to give PR a 1-0 lead. The Rams gave up a scoring opportunity at the other end but got a big save at 11:11 on Eric Yurinko as Stoney Hildreth stopped from in close. Greenburg Salem went on the power play with a chance to tie the game but the Rams killed it off. The Golden Lions did get the equalizer as Shane Davis stole the and was in on a breakaway and slipped a backhand under Stoney Hildreth to knot the game at one apiece. With 5:28 to go Pine Richland was whistled putting the Golden Lions on the power play. Salem took a penalty and at 2:51 Phil Trombetta made them pay burying a wrist shot from the right hand circle. With 1:47 PR went on the power play Evan Goetz drove a nail through the hearts of the Golden Lions as Evan Goetz found a bouncing puck and buried it to the stick hand side with :01 left on the clock to give the Rams a 3-1 advantage. Shots in the opening period were 12-9 in favor of Richland. At 12:18 of the middle period, Phil Trombetta threaded a perfect goal-mouth pass to George Saad, who made no mistake beating Talarico through the 5-hole to make it a 4-1 count. Moments later at 12:05, the line of Trombetta – Trombetta – Saad combined again but Shane Talarico made a terrific save stretching out and gloving a George Saad shot which had goal written all over it. Greensburg Salem had a 5 on 3 power play at 10:33 for a minute and a half, but Phil Trombetta intercepted a Lions pass and raced 100 feet and beat Talarico on the backhand through the 5-hole to make it 5-1. Hildreth stopped Shane Davis from point blank range in the waning moments of the 2nd period. On to the third period and if the Golden Lions were going to mount a comeback, they started the right way as Eric Yurinko scored at 14:28 to make it 5-2. Shane Talarico robbed Dylan Trombetta at 12:08 who parked on the doorstep. At 8:57, Jake Bosiljevac scored from right in front to make it 6-2 in favor of Richland, which ended up being the final score as the Rams, who outshot the Golden Lions 34 –29 on the evening.