Freeport Yellow Jackets

Pennsylvania Cup ~ Class AA – Peters Township 4 Haverford High 0 HERSHEY – Haverford High coach Brian Cleary was very well versed in Peters Township from a nice scouting report given to him by the only one to derail the Indians in the Class AA State Championship over the past four years in Archbishop Carroll coach Bill Hammond. The Fords won the Flyers Cup beating cinderella Council Rock South 5-1 in the finals. The Flyers Cup AA field was not the greatest of competition outscored their oppoenents 21-6 over four games and would be facing a Peters Township squad not interested in falling in the State Title game for two consecutive years. Peters Township coach Mark Cooper’s squad won the Pennsylvania Class AA State Titles in 2002 over Archbishop Carroll 10-3 and in 2003 over Holy Ghost Prep 9-3 before falling to Carroll last year. Coop’s team has battled all year to beat opponents and other unknown forces of the universe, but the Indians looked very impressive in knocking Pine Richland off 6-2 in the Penguins Cup as Rob Madore continued his stellar play between the pipes. This Peters team seems to be peaking again as all three offensive lines have contributed at the right times throughout the playoffs. The Indians dominated the first period of play outshooting Haverford 12-5, who looked overmatched at times. Fords goaltender Dave Thomas made several excellent saves as the Indians were looking to score early and often. Dustin Roux capitalized on some excellent work by Jeff Hannan, who broke up a play in the neutral zone and hit a breaking Roux, who snapped a shot which squeezed past Thomas for a 1-0 Peters lead with 3:15 left in the first. Haverford hung in there in the second period as Thomas stopped 11 more shots and Rob Madore was making it look easy at the other end stopping all 12 Haverford shots in the 1st and 2nd period. The interesting thing about this game was that although the Fords had limited offense pressure Peters was only up by one and HH could tie the contest with just one shot. The Fords did get several chances in the 3rd period as Rob Madore really never looked to be in any trouble as he kept turning the Fords aside. The big goal and backbreaker of this 2005 Class AA State Championship would be provided by the Brothers Papciak. Hard working and crafty older brother Bryan Papciak snapped a pass from freshman brother Chris up under the crossbar with 7:55 left in the final period of regulation, which was clearly a goal and confirmed by the referee who had perfect position to see it. The 2-0 lead for the Indians was huge and PT responded by just dominating the hockey game to the finish as Coop rolled out three lines which looked like sharks cycling their prey and it yielded a goal by Gerry Raymond on the slapshot with 5:27 left and a 2nd goal by Roux, who scored on a Jeff Hannan rebound. Peters won its third Pennsylvania Class AA Championship in four years in a dominating performance, which displayed the great personality of a team, which has attitude and is pretty confident about their abilities, which is a very diversified group of highly skilled players, hard working role players and a great goaltender, who play for a coach who is very underrated and doesn’t get a whole lot of credit. I am sure coach Coop will take those three championships because Peters is now in the elite of Class AA teams of all time joining Thomas Jefferson and Erie Fairview as the only Class AA schools to win three titles. Congratulations to the Peters Township Indians – Pennsylvania Cup Class AA Champions.