Announcement
Mt Lebanon holds off USC for 3-2 win
CASTLE SHANNON –
Thirty-Seven years ago, in April 1970, the Mt Lebanon and Upper St Clair High School Hockey Clubs played a hockey game at the Alpine Ice Chalet in Swissvale. Along with Allderdice, Churchill, Penn Hills and West Mifflin North, these schools began a journey for Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Hockey. Of those programs Churchill, Mt Lebanon and Upper St Clair own two Pennsylvania State Championships in their history and only Mt Lebanon and Upper St Clair remain in the hunt for Pennsylvania’s premier championship the Class AAA title.
Mt Lebanon was the last of those schools to reach the promised land in 2006, when they exorcised 30 years since their last Pennsylvania AAA title and as lore would have it Head Coach Paul Taibi, invited Blue Devil patriarch Mickey McDermott to offer a few kind words to the Mt Lebanon players prior to that championship victory and that is a great tradition of Mt Lebanon hockey as the present always embraces the past teams and traditions. The current Blue Devils are again competing and part of the process of channeling their efforts toward the Penguins Cup and Pennsylvania High School Hockey Championships in March. The Blue Devils spend their off time competing against the nations best teams as they did a week ago in Jamestown, New York at the National Invitational Scholastic Showcase and went toe to toe with the defending Illinois State Champions Glenbrook North in a 1-0 thriller and this type of competition helps Lebo to excel as they did with a 1-0 victory in Meadville Monday night and to be very comfortable in close games against the competition in front of them.
Upper St Clair hockey picked up their 500th win in 2007 and the program continues to dangle in the upper Escalon of Class AAA, but the roadblocks of Bethel Park and Mt Lebanon continue to stand in the way of aspirations for the Panthers. Head Coach Dave ‘the Boy Wonder’ Fryer and his staff including long-time Shaler coach Ron Steedle and former Gateway head Lou Biancanello are trying to point the USC program in that direction. After a 4-0-0 start, the Panthers have lost three straight to # 2 Bethel Park, # 4 Meadville and # 1 Pine Richland as they prepared to host # 3 Mt Lebanon in a torid stretch of the Class AAA schedule. The inconsistencies that have plagued the program over the past 15 years of lack of commitment to Upper St Clair with more focus on their of key players needed to compete with the deep Pine Richland and capture audiences commanded by Lebo, Bethel and Meadville.
The problem exists with the Kool Aid with an Investment Junior and Midget programs, who charge between $ 6000 and 15,000 to these families and hold them hostage through their 23 man rosters and the threat of sitting them during their weekend games if they miss practice for a High School game are the main culprit. I will have an editorial on this upcoming, but folks this is extortion. Furthermore, the PIHL in their infinite wisdom continues to schedule Friday Night games between top teams, which are reduced to less than full squads and therefore has had a direct effect on lack of attendance as their product is less than stellar because many of the top players are not participating. The last time I checked, one player from Mt Lebanon or Upper St Clair has made it to the National Hockey League in 37 years and that would be Ryan Malone, whose number was retired by the club and oh by the way, played for the Panthers and graduated from USC.
The opening period was dominated by Mt Lebanon, but it was USC goaltender Max Daurora who stood tall and turned aside several Lebo scoring chances including all 11 shots. The game was scoreless after one before a very nice crowd at Ralph and Alf’s Castle and a virtual Who’s Who night with many notables in attendance.
On to the second period and the Blue Devils ramped up their attack with several power plays and USC was bending but not breaking as the Panthers were able to get a little bit of pressure of their own on Mt Lebanon’s towering goaltender Robbie Behling.
The Blue Devils finally struck after a great play by Taylor Phillips at the center point to leap in the air and keep the puck in the zone, Brandon Bianco found a loose puck at the left of Daurora and deposited it past the Panther goaltender for a 1-0 Lebo lead at 7:41 on the power play. Dan Roman extended the Blue Devil lead taking a Jame Greeno feed and whipping a wrist shot high over the glove hand over Max Daurora with 2:36 to go to make it 2-0 and Mt Lebanon head to the ice cut with a 2-0 lead and 24 –10 shot advantage.
It was gut check time for Upper St Clair and the first five minutes of the third period was all St Clair as at 13:23 James Kline took a beautiful cross ice saucer pass from freshman Barrett Keib and slid it under Behling to cut the lead to 2-1. The Panthers came right back less than a minute later at 12:26 as this time Kline threw the puck to the net and Rocky Cersosimo pounced on the rebound and beat Behling scoring to tie the game at two apiece with plenty of time to go. Now for Upper St Clair, losers of three straight a great opportunity to make a statement and knock off Mt Lebanon and a chance to build some momentum toward turning the corner. Mt Lebanon has been here in these games and settled by solid shifts in the middle of the third period to thwart the USC upset bid. The dagger came with 6:32 to go in the third period as Upper St Clair failed to clear the zone after several attempts and the puck ended up on the stick of Lebo defense Mike Roman, who rifle a slapshot low to the glove side past Daurora to give the Blue Devils a 3-2 lead. Mt Lebanon dug in and built a wall in front of Robbie Behling, who shut the door on Upper St Clair and earned a hard fought 3-2 victory. Mt Lebanon moves to 9-1-0 and Upper St Clair falls to 4-4-0 and could be a playoff match-up down the road and unless things change dramatically on either side, a very similar result will occur.
