Announcement
LaSalle shows Pennsylvania who is the best by drilling Pine Richland
2008 Pennsylvania High School Hockey AA Championships
LaSalle 9 Pine Richland 1
JOHNSTOWN –
Pine Richland (24-0-0) won the 2006 and 2007 Pennsylvania High School Hockey Championships in Class AA over Haverford. This prompted the program [an rightfully so] to move to Class AAA and test its valor at the top level West of State College. The Rams breezed through the competition in Class AAA and with no games against defending State Champs North Allegheny, Seneca Valley or Meadville, the Rams had a pretty uneventful schedule and even in the Penguins Cup playoffs took care of Meadville and Bethel Park as expected. Pine Richland, however, chose to allow their players to continue pursuing their club hockey careers, while playing very limited competition outside the PIHL so travel hockey to the high school team was Wheeling Park WV or State College and really did not prepare the team to much.
LaSalle (29-1-2) on the other hand plays only ten games in the Inter-County Scholastic Hockey League and coach Wally Muehlbronner made a commitment a few years ago to venture out of Pennsylvania to the Mt St Charles Invitational, which this year they won over Connecticut State champs Fairfield Prep 6-0 in the finals after defeating LaSalle Rhode Island and St Joseph’s (Buffalo, NY), the NY State Catholic Champions. The next venture was off to Meadville, where the Explorers swept through PA and Ohio competition, including North Allegheny 11-0 and Ohio Champions St Edwards twice. Not to be outdone, LaSalle headed to New Jersey to play power Don Bosco Prep, St Augustine, the New Jersey Finalist, and New Jersey Champions Delbarton in January and February. Nice resume and only one loss to Christian Brothers Academy of NJ. All of this is designed to give their players a tremendous experience, great competition and a banner year for Explorer hockey. The final stamp after a Flyers Cup victory over Holy Ghost Prep, who is following in LaSalle’s footsteps, was a match-up with Pine Richland in the Pennsylvania High School Hockey Championship.
LaSalle came out in this contest and took control from the beginning with their stronger and more physical forwards and defense knocking the Rams off the puck from the get go. A Pine Richland power play at 14:22 of the first resulted in Flyers Cup MVP Dan Pyne stopping Brandon Saad on a shot from the left circle. The Explorers went on the power play at 11:41 and although they had shots they did not score. LaSalle would strike first as Kyle Zoldy and Kevin Seybert won the battle for the loose puck and Matt O’Brien poked the loose puck past Dan Szymanski to make it 1-0 at 8:52. Brandon Saad hit the post at 8:20, but the Explorers controlled the play with a 13-3 shot advantage. With 2:26 to go in the opening period, Terrence Wallin sucked in the PR defense with great patience and slid a beautiful pass to Adam Schmidt, who made it look easy into a wide open net and a 2-0 lead.
The second period was a penalty filled period with Pine Richland on the power play with two 5 on 3’s at 14:08 and 9:52 and the shots were actually a little more even at 14 – 12 in favor of LaSalle despite killing off penalties for a majority of the period. The beginning of the avalanche on Pine Richland came at 7:59 of the 2nd period as Kyle Zoldy scored on a breakaway after a beautiful tape to tape pass from Alex Pascal to make it 3-0. The Explorers were relentless on the puck and the Rams were defenseless as Ryan Tyson buried a rebound past Szymanski of a TJ Laessig shot to make it 4-0 at 7:15. LaSalle’s Nick Cruice showed great speed up the ice creating a 3 on 1 and Adam Berkle finished it off on the rebound to make it 5-0 at 4:18. Berkle was back at it again on a power play after some great puck movement by the Explorer power play and buried a wrist shot up under the crossbar with 2:11 to go to make it 6-0. Adam Schmidt scored a shorthanded goal on the ice through the 5-hole with 46 seconds to play and this Class AAA State Championship was a rout 7-0. The Rams Reed Loney scored Pine Richland’s only goal with :02 to go in the 2nd period and this one was in the books.
The Explorers scored two more goals in the third period at 6:02 from Mark Schnupp on a rebound and at 4:41 from Ross Denczi on a feed from Adam Berkle to make the final count 9-1. An awesome display of passing, strength on the puck, teamwork and excellent defensive work was on display by one team, the LaSalle Explorers and they earned the 2008 Pennsylvania High School Hockey Class AAA Championship. LaSalle proved something in this State Championship, which will change the philosophy of teams who want to win the State Championship. The Explorers beat or tied 7 (Defending or Current) State Champions this season by playing an expanded schedule with [Delbarton NJ, Fairfield Prep Conn, St Mary's NY, St Joes (Buffalo) NY, North Allegheny PA, Pine Richland PA, St Edwards OHIO]. Pine RIchland chose to play one tournament outside of the PIHL. Maybe it’s just the players who play the game, but they were clearly the better team, which goes to prove that it’s not the record, it’s who you play that counts.
