Central Catholic Vikings

CRANBERRY - If there are two clubs in Class AAA who have been on a roller coaster ride this early season, it has been North Hills and Shaler. Rich Michalowski's young Titans are gearing for a late season run for Shaler with a good mix of young talent with some veteran players. As for John Daley's North Hills squad you just have wonder which team is gonna show up. The Indians ended Bethel Park's 47 game regular season streak two weeks ago with a 1-0 victory, but have a loss to improved but young Penn Trafford club on the resume. The pre-game chant by NH took place in the runway prior to the Shaler match up and carried right into the opening of the game as Matt Rombach scpored at 14:10 to give the Indians a 1-0 lead. The with 9:48 remaining, Tyler Cummings followed up his own rebound and beat Eddie Stotts to extend the NH lead to 2-0. Shaler woke up in the second period as Justin Thomas took a beautiful pass from Chris Sczypinski and beat Casey Dudt-Mulzet to cut the lead to 2-1 at 14:27 on the power play. North Hills came right back at 10:24 as Mark Keyser extended the Indian lead to 3-1. Thomas made a great move on Dudt Mulzet at 7:20 to make it 3-2 and pull Shaler within one goal. On to the third period and Mark Adams beat Stotts on the backhand at 12:00 to give North Hills a two goal advantage. It didn't last long as Justin Thomas took the ensuing faceoff and beat Dudt-Mulzet upstairs on the short side to complete the hat trick to make it 4-3. The Indians Rombach put the game on ice at 2:58 with a wrist shot between the 5-hole and North Hills added an empty netter at the buzzer to coast to a 6-3 victory.

MONROEVILLE - Penn Hills and Hempfield have been a rivalry in Class AAA over the past five plus years and when they meet you are almost guaranteed a hard fought game. There seem to be less at stake in this one with the Spartans off to a 1-5 start and Penn Hills off to a 1-4 start with Plum, Gateway and Franklin Regional already battling for the East AAA Division crown in November, but for certain Hempfield's Ron Grapin and Penn Hill's Lou Biancanello probably looked at their schedule and each marked this game in the "we can win that one" column. Penn Hills Brad Bruckner [8:46] and Hempfield's Dan Margonari [6:00] traded goals in the opening period for a 1-1 deadlock. Then early in the second, Spartan captain Chris Owens snuck a backhander by Kyle Bolte at 14:24 from behind the net to give Hempfield a 2-1 lead. Jay Gilardo tied the game on a wrist shot from between the circles at 6:00 to knot the game at 2-2. On to the third period and the pace an intensity picked up as both squads had power play opportunities early on. Hempfield took advantage of sloppy play by the Penn Hills power play unit, as Chris Owens picked the pocket of the defense and walked in alone and beat Bolte to give the Spartans a 3-2 lead at 13:08. Penn Hills then went on a 5 on 3 power play at 12:08 and Hempfield executed execellent penalty killing, which resulted in a Margonari breakaway stopped by Bolte. Hempfield went on the 5 on 3 power play but could not score in the middle of the final period. Then at 5:37, it was Owens, who completed the hat trick on the power play with a wrist shot, which beat Bolte on the stick side to give Hempfield a 4-2 lead. Jay Gilardo scored with 1:58 left to cut the lead to 4-3, but Hempfield's netminder Brian Houghtalen shut the door with a couple of nice saves to preserve the Spartan victory.

MT LEBANON - "Rabbit Season - Duck Season", the famous Bugs Bunny Daffy Duck cartoon was on display at about 4 o'clock in Erie yesterday as Marlin Coon's Trojans headed to Mt Lebanon to face what is supposed to be a rebuilding Mt Lebanon program. McDowell was minus a few key players due to the hunting season and would face a little 'Bear Season' in the Blue Devils. You see Mt Lebo coach Paul Taibi has been shielding his young club early this season telling those famous naysayer stories about how young they are and inexperienced his club is. There is no question that Mt Lebanon had an outstanding campaign a year ago, but what is unfolding this season with this young club may be even more impressive. Before the Trojans could get out the I-79 doldrums, the Blue Devils jumped on them as Eric Sloan, Mike Jordan, Tony Valarino and Sean Dooley scored prior to the half way mark of period one to give Mt Lebanon a 4-0 lead. Sloan added an exclamation point with only :01 on the clock on a nice feed from Chad Uddstrom. Eddie DeGregory scored at 13:06 of the second to make it 6-0 and Sloan completed the hat trick at 5:37 on the power play with another nice feed from Chad Uddstrom. McDowell's Chris McDonald broke the shutout bid of Matt Vaughn at 11:13 of the third to make it 7-1 and Sloan closed out the scoring as Mt Lebanon scored an impressive 8-1 win over McDowell.

SOUTHPOINTE - Two of Class AA top programs met on Monday night at Southpointe with identical 5-0 records. For TJ and Peters, who have ownership of four of the last five Class AA State Championships, an intimate gathering for the big matchup of around 100 people turned out for a 9:50 PM contest which was to be the feature game of the early season. On the first shift of the game, Mike Papciak, sporting a new uniform number of 70, blasted a slap shot over the left shoulder of Danny Hartman at 14:12 to give the defending Class AA champions a 1-0 lead. Coach Don Powell's troops settled down and began to carry the play which resulted in an excellent chance for Eric Holzer at 13:46 but Kyle Kittleberger stopped him from point blank range. The Indians held on to the 1-0 lead in an evenly played first period. With Peters Township on the power play to start the second, Matt Schwartz scored on the back door as the puck fluttered off Hartman's stick at 13:53 to make it 2-0. Then at 12:13, TJ's Daryl Nath took a beautiful feed from Brandon School for a power play goal and cut the lead to 2-1. Just 13 seconds later, Jaguars Andrew Olmstead found himself in front of Kittleberger but could not beat the Indian netminder. TJ was now outworking Peters Twp and pressing for the equalizer, which resulted in a Jaguar power play at 9:43. Now for the dramatics and as we know games can turn on a dime with a fortunate bounce and for Matt Schwartz, who just returned to Peters lineup, he will tell his grandchildren or maybe his younger brother about the folklore goal and how he took it coast to coast and beat five TJ defensemen. Matt was just doing his job icing the puck, when the showdown of unbeatens took a twisted turn. At 8:25 of the 2nd, Danny Hartman came out to play the icing and tried to clear the puck around the boards ....the puck carroomed to the front of the net where Daryl Nath was covering and it bounced harmlessly off the Jaguar deenseman's stick into an open net and resulted in a 3-1 Peter Twp lead in a big turning point. This goal seemed to deflate Thomas Jefferson and Mark Cooper's Indians smelled a wounded duck and were poised to take advantage. Chris Clackson scored on the shorthanded breakaway at 5:42 to extend the lead to 4-1. Christian Minella added another at 1:12 for a 5-1 Indian advantage after two periods. Minella and Papciak closed out the scoring in the third to give Peters an impressive 7-1 victory as Kittleberger slammed the door with several great stops late in the third. The victory proved costly as Matt Clackson received a game misconduct lat in the third period, which will result in him missing the next Peters test with # 2 and undefeated Greensburg Central Catholic next Monday at Iceoplex.

MONROEVILLE - While the Woodland Hills community is get ready for a trip to Hershey for a possible 1st ever football state championship, its ice hockey team is looking for win # 1 on the 2002-2003 campaign. Thats seems a little odd for Allderdice to be saying the same thing, especially since they are two years removed from the Penguin Cup final appearance. When your leading scorer is goaltender Ben Levine, then you can understand why the Dragons are winless. Ian Jackson put the Wolverines on tp early in the first period 1-0. Steven Wedner tied the game at one apiece as the teams stood at 1-1 after the opening period. On to the second period and Wedner gave the Dragons the lead for the first time at 7:07 as his wrist shot beat Jared White through a screen. The Dice's Steve Devereaux scored with :37 left in the 2nd to extend the Dragons lead to 3-1 at the end of two. Devereaux scored his 2nd goal of the night at 12:23 of the final period to give Alldrdice a comfortable 4-1 lead. The Wolverines came back a minute later as Terry Barnhart beat Ben Levine through traffic to cut the lead to 4-2. Coach Tim Wilt pulled his goalie in favor of the extra attacker and Ryan Kocak scored with just :20 seconds left to make it 4-3. Woodland Hills pressed to tie but could not beat Levine and Allderdice hung on to win 4-3.