Pennsbury Falcons - 1985 - AA

LOWER BURRELL - Jan Battista may now know what he was getting himself into by coming back to the Penn Hills Hockey program that he and his brother Joe [you may know him as the Penn State Hockey Coach who has lead the Icers to 4 Straight ACHA Division 1 National Championships and 7 overall or maybe just Joe Ba] played for during the late 1970’s [on some pretty good Penn Hills teams by the way]. Jan inherited a Penn Hills program which has fluttered ever since Jerry ‘Dr Evil’ Bass was politically removed by a self serving group of parents, who did not have the best interest of the hockey program in mind when the ousted the coach and has suffered ever since. Anyway, Jan is doing his best to right the program, which has been around since 1971 as one of the original programs in Western Pennsylvania, since it took the ice against Churchill on March 21, 1971. Jan may want to sit and have a little chat with Bruce Cameron, who has been involved with Hempfield Hockey and more importantly given over 20 years to hockey as a teacher of the game and assistant coach for the Hempfield Hockey program and has finally taken the Head Coaching position. Bruce is a true builder from the beginning of Westmoreland Hockey during the early 80’s and a fixture at the Kirk Nevin Arena, who along with people like Dave Small, who built the Greensburg Salem program, Andy Cesarski, builder of the Latrobe program, Butch Marrietta, builder of the Greensburg CC program, Gary Swingle, builder of the Franklin Regional program are part of a group of people who served hockey for the betterment of the game of hockey. Little did I know until last night. Bruce shared with me that he was involved with my HS Hockey coach Dan Sheehy, in bringing hockey schools to Greensburg in the early 1980’s when all of the aforementioned programs began. One thing Hempfield has had over the past few years has been some prolific scoring and that has been a trademark under Bernie Piesek and Bob Morningstar through the mid to late 1990’s, but it was Penn Hills who got the early jump in this one as Eddie Obenauff scored at 13:26 and Willie Banks at 11:37 to give the Indians a 2-0 lead. Hempfield’s top line answered in the opening period as Dan Margonari and John Zurenski, scored at 8:48 and 4:55 respectively to tie the game. The Indians regained the lead as the crafty Ryan Jones tickled the twine with just 0:46 left to give PH the lead 3-2 at the break. On to the second and the game really opened up as Hempfield took the lead 4-3 on goals by Jordan Bishop at 13:36 and Brian Bittner at 11:12. Ryan Jones lit the lamp again at 7:56 of the middle period, but it didn’t last long as the Spartans Jeff Robinson and John Zurenski scored 27 seconds apart at 7:56 and 7:29 for a 6-4 Hempfield lead. Jones answered completing the hat trick less than a minute later at 6:16 and Penn Hills was within one. The backbreaking goal came with 2:48 left in the second as Margonari combined with Robinson and Zurenski to extend the lead to 7-5 for Hempfield. The game was still in reach foe Penn Hills as Eddie Obenauff missed a golden opportunity to cut the lead to 7-6, but just shot wide of Hempfield goaltender Julian Yakubisin. The Spartans smelled victory as Jordan Bishop scored on the wraparound at 12:48 and Zurenski completed the hat trick on a nice pass from Margonari at 11:46 and the rout was on 9-5. Jones added his fourth goal on the evening to cut the lead to 9-6, but Jake Belli put the exclamation point on a 10-6 victory for Hempfield and win # 1 for the Spartans and Bruce Cameron in 2003-2004.

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DELMONT – Norwin coach Dave Warren began this season with promise as Senior goaltender Steve Bell was outstanding in a 2-0 opening loss to Shaler with 35 saves and the Knights evened their record with a 10-3 pummeling of Woodland Hills. Bad news came when Bell was injured and his status is uncertain, bad timing as Norwin would have to face a very offensive minded Butler club. Butler is off to its best start since the mid-1990’s when the Toronadoes had a run of five straight winning seasons including a Penguin Cup Elite 8 appearance before losing to eventual Penguin Cup champion Central Catholic. Coach Bob Hoehn took the night off as he was out of town on business, but his offense did not. Budding superstars Spencer Crouse and Greg Rogerson led the way for the Golden Toronadoes as Butler smashed Norwin outshooting them 44-12 and shelling Norwin’s Michael Pochan for a 10-0 whitewash. Crouse scored four times and Rogerson added a pair of goals and a pair of assists. Butler also received a strong game from Brian Rogers with two goals, Jared White with 4 assists and B.J. Tipton with 3 assists. Bucky Holt had an easy shutout for Butler. The honeymoon will end as the Golden Toronadoes will face defending State Champion Meadville Wednesday at the Belmont and put their 3-0-0 record on the line.

HARMARVILLE - Special Report to Pa Hockey provided by Mt Lebanon Hockey ! # 1 Central Catholic faced off # 2 Mt Lebanon faced off in an early season battle for the top spot in Class AAA. Lebo struck first as Mike Jordan scored an early a power play goal putting in the rebound off a Tony Valerino shot from the slot to give Lebo a 1-0 lead. Pgh CC came right back with a PP goal of their own as Mike McGurk blasted one through traffic from the point to tie the game at 1-1. With :31 seconds left in the 1st period Eric Sloan took a perfect pass from Dan Wilen who was behind the net and beat Bryan Adamczak on the short side to give Lebo a 2-1 after 1 period. With 5 minutes to go in the 2nd Tony Valerino broke down the right side and slipped one past Adamczak to regain Lebo's 2 goal lead at 3-1 but CC came back again less than a minute later as Bill Freyvogel beat Matt Vaughan through the legs due to the hard work behind the net of Ryan Gerber and CC was back in it after 2 periods trailing 3-2. The all important 'next goal' was scored midway through the 3rd as Chad Uddstrom took a pass from Eric Sloan and beat Adamczak on a wrap around to give Lebo a 4-2. With CC pressing in the Lebo zone Matt Capalonga was called for a penalty and Ed Martin was given a misconduct and a game misconduct. Lebo then put the game away as Chad Uddstrom buried a Bill Leckenby rebound to give Lebo a 5-2 victory. Final shots on goal were Lebo = 23 CC = 14

DELMONT – Fox Chapel coach Keith Kearney knows his team is achieving a lot of firsts this season as they defeated Bethel Park last week to move ahead of the Hawks, Meadville and Cathedral Prep in the Elite 8 rankings. The Foxes have seen just about enough of Franklin Regional as they have defeated the Panthers twice this season in tournament action and would face them a third time in the regular season. Franklin Regional coach Jim Damp knows his team is working extremely hard, but needs that one additional boost to win the close games. Their gamebreaker Jimmie Daugherty looks to be sidelined for a while and the Panthers hope to have their leader back for another playoff run in February. Needless to say their infamous 21st man was their on crutches to root on his team against FC along with a racious group of Franklin students. Joe Budz continued to have the hot hand as he redirected home a Matt Quigley pass at 9:11 of the first period for a 1-0 Fox Chapel lead. Franklin took advantage of a Foxes miscue as Mark Gigliotti pulled the puck around a fallin down FC defenseman and wlaked down the slot and buried a wrister past Todd Hendry for a tie game at 1-1 with 2:14 left in the first. Fox Chapel came out physical in the second and coach Kearney’s move of Jason Kreps to offense paid off as he beat Chris Fonzi on the backhand as Quigley ran interference on the Panther defense at 13:17 for a 2-1 FC lead. Kreps just missed a 2nd goal as he just deflected a tip wide on a give and go with Dan Thiessen at 10:42. It didn’t take long after that for Fox Chapel to score as Ryan McDonald celebrated his return to the team with a beautiful goal as he walked off the boards and beat Fonzi upstairs at 10:03 to extend the lead to 3-1. Matt Quigley showed why many consider him one of the most dangerous players in Class AAA as he outraced the Franklin defense to the puck and in one motion backhanded a pass to Budz, who beat Fonzi on the backhand and all the sudden Fox Chapel was in control at 7:58 of the middle period 4-1. The Panthers picked up the pace and continued to pressure Todd Hendry outshooting the Foxes 24-13 through two periods. On to the third period and Franklin fed off their excellent work in the last 5 minutes of the 2nd and it paid off, as ‘Bugs Bunny’ or the ‘Eveready Bunny’, you take your choice, Luke Baughman made a great play with a move on the forehand beating the FC defense and Hendry to cut the lead to 4-2 at 10:22. Franklin stepped up the pressure on FC outshooting them 17-4 in the final period as they went on the power play at 9:40, which was killed by the Foxes. After a freak bounce in the Fox Chapel zone, Lou Levine found the puck in the slot and poked it past Hendry and all the sudden with 5:39 left it was now 4-3. Franklin looked to be in trouble as the Panthers took a penalty with 2:49 left, but FR killed the penalty and looked to tie the game with under a minute to play. Fox Chapel would be challenged and it would take goaltender Todd Hendry to make two big saves in the games final seconds as he robbed David Hopper with 4 seconds left and may have got a piece of Joe Ferraro’s shot which hit the post at the buzzer to preserve a 4-3 Fox Chapel win and a perfect 3-0-0 record.