Freeport Yellow Jackets

CASTLE SHANNON - Allderdice is one of the original ‘six’ high school hockey programs along with Churchill [now part of Woodland Hills], Mt Lebanon, Penn Hills, Upper St. Clair and West Mifflin North in 1970-1971, which was an exhibition season prior to the forming of the WPIHL [which was known at the time as the Western Pennsylvania High School Hockey League]. The Dragons have fielded a Varsity team for every year but one in 1984-1985 and the amazing part of their history is that they have a very respectable 305-342-43 record with a Penguin Cup AA Championship in 1988 and most recently a Penguin Cup AAA Finalist appearance in 2001. So they discussion goes on as the remnants of the Dice Penguin Cup team have graduated and now faced with the discussion of whether to field a Varsity in 2003-2004, so Adam Billingsley, whose father kept the Allderdice program afloat for a better part of five years in the mid-to-late 1990’s on a shoestring, has been called upon to guide a very inexperienced group of Dragons through the rough terrain of a division with the Bethel Park’s, the Upper St. Clair’s, Mt Lebanon’s, Baldwin’s and Central Catholic’s in Class AAA. The Allderdice bench always looks the same going back to the Buddy Martin and Dee Rizzo era in the 1970’s through the Dickie Rizzo era in the 1980’s and the Andrew Dealy led Penguin Cup team in 2001, a handful of players still don the Green, Blue and White and go out to represent the City League in Hockey. Connellsville, enters its eighth season of existence with a 7-172-3 record and is coming off a 2-22-0 season in 2002-2003. The debate about Connellsville was from the beginning as to if it ever should have fielded a Varsity team in 1995-1996 until it had developed a Junior Varsity and Freshman team, but the program has survived solely due to the beautiful Ice Mine facility it plays in at Divito Park. Former Penn Hills superstar Jeff Fleck, who played for the Indians as an 8th grader in the early 1980’s and then went on to play at Hotchkiss, a prestigious Prep School in New England, is in his first year as a Head Coach after stints at Penn Hills and Woodland Hills, may be the perfect fit to put the Falcons on track to finally developing a hockey program and early in this season …..the unthinkable words have been spoken….now come on every …..all at once …..Playoffs!… Now that wasn’t so hard…was it ?. A big opening night thrashing of Woodland Hills and a near overtime loss to North Hills has a buzz around Falcon land. With my faithful assistant Billy Zuri on hand for the late game at the Ice Castle, vying to regain Top 5 fan status again…..the Dragons and Falcons took to the ice to renew some fun from a game a year ago in Connellsville, which apparently ended in high spirits, fights, some heated words, but no suspensions, which is par for the course for the PIHL and its look the other way selective discipline policy. Connellsville came out in the first period looking for win # 2 as Jacon Burncheck converted a Michael Brooks pass at 6:44 to give the Falcons a 1-0 lead. Veteran Connellsville player Michael Schmidle smelled paydirt as he buried a wrist shot on the short side over the shoulder of John Luxbacher for a 2-0 advantage with just :41 left in the opening period. Allderdice came back in the second benefiting from a two man advantage as Drew Brown scored on a long slapshot past the stick side of Craig Cordaro at 13:42 to cut the lead to 2-1. The Dragons struck less than a minute later as Steve Deveraux found a loose puck and beat Cordaro on the short side to tie the game at two apiece at 12:55. Connellsville reclaimed the lead as Anthony Vilella slammed home a rebound at 6:57 to give the Falcons a 3-2 advantage. Coach Fleck has been stressing discipline and told his team to concentrate on playing hockey in the 3rd period and avoid the nonsense. The Falcons responded and Keith Cordaro walked down the slot and beat Luxbacher at 14:10 for a very important insurance tally and a 4-2 lead. The Dice came unglued and began taking penalties resulting in a 5 on 3, which spelled trouble as the Falcons Jeremy Burncheck took a great feed from Schmidle and made no mistake to give Connellsville a 5-2 lead. The Falcons put an exclamation point on a big win as Keith Cordaro converted on the power play after some nice work by linemates Nathan Romesburg and Jacob Shelkey at 9:03 to give Connellsville an impressive 6-2 victory and a hope of playoffs for the first time in Falconland. The Falcons outshot the Dice on the evening 57-23.