Freeport Yellow Jackets

DELMONT ~ Bethel Park headed into a critical stretch of games this week against three ranked opponents, which was supposed to start on Monday at home against Cathedral Prep. Coach Jim McVay’s Hawks will now play the Ramblers next Wednesday in the last of a trio including Meadville, ECP and the new kid on the block Franklin Regional. BP hopes to nail down the # 1 seed in the upcoming playoffs and surviving this stretch would be critical to that goal. Franklin Regional got caught counting their chickens Tuesday night as the Panthers may have been a little too relaxed in a big division battle with Gateway and it came back to bite them in a 5-2 loss to the arch-rival Gators. Jim Damp’s club had double motivation as the East Division crown and the # 1 Blackhawks were in front of Franklin if they could pull of an upset. Should the Panthers capture the East Division crown, it would be their first since 1996, when FR won the WPIHL AA Championship. Franklin came out gunning on the first shift and Joe Ferriero slammed home a rebound just 16 seconds in to give the home team a 1-0 lead. If you make mistakes against Bethel they’ll make you pay and goaltender Brandon Stallard mishandled a clearing attempt and it ended up on BP’s Johnathon Glock’s stick and he buried a wrist shot to tie the game at 1-1 at 13:06. At 11:28, Luke DeLorenzo took advantage of a broken play in the Bethel end and beat Matt Feige through the 5-hole and the Panthers regained the lead 2-1. With 8:12 remaining, Brandon Hanley’s breakaway was stopped by Stallard, but the big Bethel forward came back to tie the game at 4:59 with a wicked wrist shot to make the score 2-2. DeLorenzo picked up his second goal of the game beating Feige on a soft goal with 4:04 remaining in the opening period and FR was back on top 3-2. Brian Bakowski replaced Feige between the pipes and made a huge save on DeLorenzo with 1:38 left in the 1st. On to the second and Bethel Park started to fuel on the goaltending of Bakowski, who stoned Michael Roth on a breakaway at 9:52. The Hawks Michael Diethorn got the equalizer with a little over 7 ½ minutes left in period number two on a rebound. Franklin’s Dakota Drew put his team back on top 4-3 with :21 left on a feed from DeLorenzo as the Panthers capitalized on aggressive play against BP. Bakowski continue to shine for Bethel, stopping Roth and DeLorenzo early in the period. This brought hope to Gateway, whose players were rooting on the Blackhawks to defeat Franklin and keep their division title hopes alive. With 6:30 remaining, Sean Buckley delivered an insurance tally through traffic which trickled past the BP goalie and a 5-3 lead for the Panthers. Bethel Park pulled the goalie on the power play as Stallard made several big saves and DeLorenzo completed the hat trick with a 155 foot shot into the open net with :23 seconds remaining which sent the Franklin faithful into a tizzy at a packed house in Delmont for a 6-3 upset victory for Franklin and one step away from a division title.