St Joseph's Prep Hawks

A vision on paper has now become reality as the Inaugural National Invitational Scholastic Showcase will take place November 10-12 in Jamestown New York. The Bat Crew will be on hand to bring you LIVE coverage on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Please join the crew from Bx Video, Heck Video Productions with the Pa Hockey Network from the Jamestown Savings Bank Arena. Friday November 10th - 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM The National Invitational Scholastic Showcase Pre Tournament Show including Coaches, Players and Guests from the participating teams. Saturday November 11th - 1:00 - 3:00 PM National Invitational Scholastic Showcase Skills Competition Jeff Mauro and Dave 'The Boy Wonder' Fryer will be on hand as 40 of the NISS top players engage in skills competition SEMI-FINALS 12-Nov-06 10:30 AM RINK 1 - New Trier Green vs Meadville *****LIVE ON PA HOCKEY**** 12-Nov-06 10:45 AM RINK 2 - Bethel Park vs Buffalo St Francis National Invitational Scholastic Showcase Governor's Cup Finals 12-Nov-06 3:30 PM RINK 1 [Note: Time subject to change]

VALENCIA – Hampton 5 Kittanning 3 Kittanning advanced to the 2006 Penguins Cup before bowing to Pine Richland in the final at the Mellon Arena in March. The Wildcats opened up their quest for the 2007 Penguins Cup with a 4-3 victory over Peters Township. Coach Jon Yackmack will realize soon enough that Class AA is full of many hopefuls with aspirations to unseat Pine Richland this season and has tooled his team with plenty of depth as Kittanning has nearly 25 players who could see action this season as he welcomed back Colin McKelvey and Lucas Sasala back to action from Football that ended just last Friday. The Cats have stiffened their schedule to include a trip to Jamestown, New York this weekend to compete in the Inaugural National Invitational Scholastic Showcase against the top teams from Texas, Illinois, New York, Indiana, Florida, Eastern Pennsylvania and Western Pennsylvania to seek tougher competition and experience. Hampton has struggled over the past few seasons with players who left the program to seek Midget AAA glory leaving the program almost depleted of enough players to field a competitive Varsity team that has not had a winning campaign wince 2003. Allen ‘Whitey’ Walsh enters the 06-07 season with more hope as Hampton has a core group of personnel that looks a like a Hampton team ready to compete with Pine Richland and Kittanning for the North Division crown. A 3-3 tie against the defending AA State Champions Rams in the St Margaret’s Fall Face Off was a start and an opening win over 2006 Penguins Cup semi-finalists Canevin was another bright spot for the Talbots. After a 3-18-0 season in 2005-2006, any positives for the Talbots is a plus. Hampton opened the scoring at 14:18 of the opening period as Bryan Relihan picked up a loose rebound and beat Joey Mecurio on the backhand for a 1-0 lead. Kittannning battled to tie the game in the 1st and the best chance came as Nick Troup was stopped by Lance Hutton from point blank range with 3:17 left. With 11:53 to play in the 2nd period, Kittanning’s Joey Ford tied the game from right in front of Hutton and then the Wildcats took the lead as Jergen Koster scored on a rebound of brother Deiter Koster to make it 2-1 at the 11:05 mark. Hampton came right back at 9:36 of the middle period as Jordan Del Torre blasted a slapshot high over the glove hand side of Joey Mecurio from the left point to knot the score at two apiece. With 7:10 to play in the 2nd period, Lance Hutton stopped Lucas Sasala on the breakaway to keep the game tied. With twelve minutes remaining in regulation, the Wildcats went on a 5 on 3 power play, but the Talbots turned the tide as Chase Evans stole the puck and race in on a breakaway and beat Mecurio with 10:30 to play and :12 seconds left in the Kittanning man advantage. The Cats came back as Nick Troup beat Hutton on a slapshot low to the glove side to tie the score 3-3 with 8:21 left in the 3rd period. Hampton would score the big goal as Jason Bateman scored from the doorstep with 4:16 to play to give the Talbots a 4-3 lead. Chase Evans salted the victory with an empty netter with 37 ticks left and Hampton moved to 2-0 for the first time in a long time and tied with Pine Richland for 1st place in the North Division, which may not be a big deal at this point of the season, but is a great accomplishment for the Talbots program.

Each year for the past eleven seasons, Pa Hockey has compiled the Standings, Scores and Rankings for the Post Gazette. The complete results for 17 weeks os the season and final rankings for Western Pennsylvania teams for Class A, AA, AAA and Open Division for the Pa Hockey Elite 8 and Pittsburgh Post Gazette Top 5 teams at Class A, AA, AAA are included. In addition, the final 2007 Penguins Cup seedings and the complete Master Schedule. WEEK 17 STANDINGS AND RANKINGS - As of March 2, 2007 ***NOW AVALABLE*** FINAL REGULAR SEASON # 1 RANKED TEAMS - Class AAA ~ Bethel Park Class AA ~ Pine Richland Class A ~ Quaker Valley Class Open ~ Hempfield

Bethel Park 7 North Allegheny 0 BETHEL PARK – Semi Who’s Who night with Batman, Robin ‘the Boy Wonder’ and Alfred headlining the featured guest list including Central’s Tom Pandolfo, Cal’s Jan Battista and Justin Berger, Bobby and Bonnie Black from Pine Allegheny, NA’s Denny Sheran, the Bethel Park tailgaters before a sparse but vocal crowd at the Bethel Park BladeRunners on the campus of the University of Bethel Park. Bethel Park and North Allegheny played in the St Margaret’s Fall Face Off and held on to defeat the Tigers 5-4 after building a 5-1 lead. These teams and programs are so familiar with one another that former NA coach Pandolfo was scouting North Allegheny just as much as BP. The Blackhawks are widely regarding as one of the favorites to capture the Penguins Cup and were ranked # 1 in the Pa Hockey Pre-Season Coaches poll.The Tigers of NA were ranked a close 3rd behind Meadville, who was upended by Central Catholic in the opener 6-3 on Monday night. There is no question that when the playoff bell rings in March that both of these teams will represent the top teams in Class AAA. Home ice advantage is always worth a goal advantage or perhaps a penalty call for the home team and BP received the first power play in the opening period. At At 10:14 Graham Cohen found Matt Seifert on the back door who deposited the puck past Max Richards to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead. At 8:28 of the first Wes Waldschmidt had a couple of Hawks draped on him and just miss and it resulted in an NA power play. At 5:20 of the first period a big scramble the occurred in the front of the NA net and the Hawks kept banging away and the puck squirted past Richards and the whistle blew and the goal counted and it was 2-0 Bethel Park. On to the second and at 11:07, the Hawks struck again as Tommy Whetsel found Kenny Lehman to cap off a 2 on 1 to give BP a 3-0 lead. Bethel made it 4-0 when David Spadacene blistered a wrist shot down on the ice to the stick side with a little over 9 minutes to play to make it a 4-0 hockey game and chasing Max Richards in favor of Adam Lutty. Graham Cohen cashed in with 7:04 remaining in the 2nd period to turn this into a 5-0 hockey game. Bethel cruised to a running clock in the third period as Graham Cohen scored on a backhand with 10:08 remaining and capitalized on a Tiger defensive lapse at 8:20 of the final period to create a running clock and a 7-0 whitewash of North Allegheny by the Hawks. Bethel, many of whose players play on a split season amateur team looked like a team in the middle of their season and North Allegheny didn’t. Although it is only March, the Hawks made a statement and it will be up to the rest of AAA to answer over the next five months.

Central Catholic 6 Meadville 3 Harmarville – Central Catholic is coming off a couple of non CC type seasons in 2005 and 2006, which saw the Vikings slip and not make the Penguins Cup Semi-finals after 3 consecutive trips in previous years. If you are going to jumpstart your program and make a change, hiring Tom Pandolfo is a pretty good choice and being able to get Stu Rulnick as his assistant is a cherry on top. The Vikings have had talent through their program, but amazingly have only made it to the Pennsylvania State Finals twice in the 35-year history of the program in 1982, losing to Erie Fairview in the finals and in 1998 losing to LaSalle in a heartbreaker at the Rostraver Ice Garden. It may be unfair to many to measure the success in those terms, but Bethel Park, Mt Lebanon and Meadville have gotten the job done using that criteria and Central Catholic and North Allegheny haven’t, so when it comes to the end of the day the word ‘great’ used with program or coach doesn’t go together until the aforementioned happens. The Vikings are looking to change all of that and a good place to start is 8-time Pennsylvania champions from ‘the House of Chills’. Meadville has won those championships and the end of a season that does not result in a win leads a disappointing summer and begins the drive in another chapter to be written. After the Bulldogs won it in 2003, I can distinctly remember a reflection with head coach Jamie Plunkett [who celebrates year # 20 and is nearing 1000 games in his coaching career] at the Ice Line after their comeback victory over a very strong Malvern Prep team. Coach Plunkett mentioned to me that he never stopped believing in his players and had faith that he would get back and win it SOMEDAY, but wasn’t sure he’d ever see it again and folks this was after a 7 year drought dating back to 1996. Championships are won in a fickle way and if you don’t believe that hang around Bethel Park, who grasped victory from the jaws of defeat in 2005 over coach Pandolfo’s NA Tigers 1-0 at the Mellon Arena in the Penguins Cup in a game no one could have predicted in a million years, but the point is belief and confidence in your players is where it all starts. I sense that in several camps this season including Meadville and Central and Bethel and NA and Mt Lebanon and those five teams will vie for who travels to Philly…Delphia in late March or early April, so remember this game is on October 30th and not March 30th. Central came out on the opening period with the fire I would expect from a Tom Pandolfo team and dominated Meadville all over the ice. The Vikings opened the scoring at 9:57 as Chris Urso took a nice feed from C.J. Burke for a quick 1-0 lead. Just 8 seconds later, Burke lit the lamp again with a wicked wrist shot to make the score 2-0. CC was not done as they took advantage of a 4 on 4 situation and Andy Hanno walked off the near boards and beat Mike Licinski through the 5-hole for a three to nill count. Mike Licinski made several nice stops during Bulldog penalty kills and to give his team an opportunity to get back into the game. The backbreaker came with :07 left on the first period clock as Chris Urso took advantage of a turnover and buried a wrist shot high over the glove hand side for his 2nd goal of the game and give the Vikings a 4-0 lead and a 12-2 shot advantage. The Bulldogs finally broke through on the power play at 14:19 as Pat Leone gathered a loose puck in the slot and deposited high over the glove side of John Scalo to cut the Central lead to 4-1. Then at 9:06, the Bulldogs were a little overzealous on an effort to hit C.J. Burke in a shorthanded situation and it cost them as Andy Hanno picked up the loose puck and deposited behind Licinski to reclaim the four-goal advantage. Licinski was able to stop Burke on a breakaway at 8:28, but gave up a very weak shorthanded goal to Josh Martin, whose shot from the goal line banked off something in front to make it 6-1. Meadville finally settled down and after Aaron Nye’s open ice hit as his own blue line. Pat Leone picked up the puck in the neutral zone and carried it into the CC zone beat a defenseman and fed a streaking Nick Fedorka who scored into an empty net to make it 6-2 as the Vikings carried a 25-7 shot advantage to the final period. On to the third period and the Bulldogs finally started to get some offensive pressure in the Central zone, but could not score until at 5:44 when freshman Bill Espy scored to cut the lead to 6-3. Extracurricular activity began to re-institute the Meadville – Central rivalry at 4:18 of the final as both teams engaged in a scrum behind the Meadville goal. The Vikings were able to limit Meadville to only one goal as the final shot total read 27-12. An impressive win for the Vikings and back to the drawing board for the Bulldogs and it would be easy to say that the Central Catholic – Meadville rivalry is now in a new chapter….the question is will this chapter continue into March for either or both squads ?.