Announcement
Pine Richland 4 Mt Lebanon 0
VALENCIA
Pine Richland has won two consecutive Pennsylvania State Class AA championships in the previous two seasons and without a game being played people are already putting their name on the 2008 Penguins Cup and Pennsylvania Cup. A dangerous proposition for some, but with the wall to wall talent of this team from player # 1 to # 20, the Rams are a very solid hockey team. The greatest team of all time, well time and history will tell that story and you have to win the State Championship at the Class AAA level and with the group of schools and traditions that Pine Richland will have to beat, not to mention some pretty good coaches, who are well prepared, let’s just say March could get pretty interesting around these parts. The wild card in all of this may be Dan Szymanski, a goaltender who was playing hockey in Arizona last year and looks to be a pretty capable replacement for Stoney Hildreth. The Rams big line of Dylan Trombetta, George Saad and monster freshman Brandon Saad are just the start of what teams will have to face when combating Pine Richland, who is ranked # 1 in the latest Pittsburgh Post Gazette poll.
Mt Lebanon’s Paul Taibi doesn’t like to lose in a game of marbles and I am sure he was a little worried after Team Pittsburgh goaltender Robbie Behling went down to injury in last Friday night’s heartstopping win over defending Class AAA champions North Allegheny 4-3, where the Blue Devils scored with just two ticks remaining. The Blue Devils have built some depth with their team for this season and hopefully that will make up for some scoring needed to thrust Lebo into the Penguins Cup hunt in March. The concern of course will be for Mt Lebanon is to develop a big time scoring attack necessary to carry the team in big games, such as Pine Richland, and maybe the win over North Allegheny will be a confidence boaster to provide clutch goals at key times as the # 2 ranked Blue Devils face # 1 Rams at the Infection Connection or Ice Connection or the place with the new scoreboard and home of the Rams.
A limited Who’s Who night of Mt Lebanon and Pine Richland notables on hand including King Tut, Dr Denton, Bags, Mr X Y Axis Cummings, King Arthur of the Hilltoppers, whose Westmont team beat Hampton in the preliminary game and the infamous Bob the Bus Driver from Westmont, who was looking for a big grudge type match in the parking lot below the rink.
Pine Richland came out and took control in the first period outshooting Mt Lebanon 11-1 and Robbie Behling looked sharp for the Blue Devils and almost pitched a shutout until with 1:35 to go Dylan Trombetta pounced on a rebound to make it 1-0 for the Rams.
Mt Lebanon closed the gap in the second period and actually mounted some good pressure in the PR end but could not beat Dan Szymanski as the Rams outshot Lebo 7-5 in a pretty evenly played period. With 8:23 to go in the period, Bryan Watt chipped a rebound over Behling’s shoulder to make it 2-0.
The third period was a little show of frustration by the Blue Devils as the shot total ended up 30-11, but the real story of the period was some bad penalties called and bad penalties taken by the Blue Devils including some unusual undiscipline from some of the players, who should know better. Good teams take advantage and have killer instinct and Pine Richland served the knockout with 11:04 to go as underrated defenseman Evan Goetz whistled a slap shot from the top of the right face-off circle past Robbie Behling to make it 3-0 and then the cherry came with 8:22 to play as Dylan Trombetta buried a cross ice feed from Brandon Saad to close out the scoring as the Rams served notice to all of Class AAA that they are for real and will have to be dealt with in March with an impressive 4-0 win over previously undefeated Mt Lebanon.
