Central Catholic Vikings

VALENCIA - What a difference ten days makes in a season......On 11/21...Jeff Smouse's Kittanning club scored an exciting 3-2 overtime victory over powerful South Park, which confirmed the Wildcats comeback streak of three in a row after an 0-2 start. On the same night, Hampton moved to 2-1 and into first place in the PIHL AA North with a convincing 4-1 victory over arch-rival Pine Richland. For Hampton head coach Craig Clontz, he was looking ahead at the schedule after the PR game and saw Greensburg CC and Kittanning as big tests for his young team and after the thumping the Centarians put on Hampton, he was looking for a better effort against Kittanning. The first period see-sawed as both teams jabbed in a tennis match through the first 7 1/2 minutes. Kittanning had the first opportunity on the power play and Zach Cain scored at the 6:41 mark to give the Wildcats a 1-0 lead. Then with 3:10 remaining, Hampton's Brian Troiano made a spectacular save on Dustin Kellner, but Joel Shriver pounced on the rebound and buried it to give the Wildcats a 2-0 lead after one. Coach Clontz tried to rally his troops early in the second, but an undisciplined penalty behind the play put Kittanning on the power play and at 12:54 Brandon Beatty's shot from the point deflected off a Talbot defenseman in front and behind Troiano for a huge goal and a 3-0 lead for Kittanning. The flood gates opened late in the middle period as Lee Heilman [4:05] and Shriver [3:01] score to give the Wildcats a commanding 5-0 lead. Pat Schneidier and Luke Heller added third period goals and Adam Toy stopped everything the Talbot threw at him to coast to a 7-0 victory at the Ice Connection.

Each year the top 25 players are chosen and each year our esteemed Website chooses the top 5 "Fans of the League".....above is some of the favorite cartoon characters of Western Pa Hockey and Eastern Pa Hockey ...... After much lobbying and anguish and phone calls and games and trips to Johnstown and Erie and even Golden Mile and e-mails and phone calls to our Philly fanatics .........it is finally here....on Pa Hockey's > Top 25 Players in Eastern and Western Pa > Top 5 Coaching performances and Top 5 Freshman flashes in Western Pa > and the coveted top 5 'Fans of the League' Also included is the Top 25 from 2002 and 2001 which you can access by selecting the tabs of our spreadsheet The All Star game will be held on Febrary 9th at the Kirk Nevin Arena in Greensburg beginning at 1:00 PM........check out who made the all-stars by clicking on the logo below !

MEADVILLE - The 'House of Chills' in November was packed to the rafters for the big showdown between the # 1 ranked Ramblers of Cathedral Prep and the Dawgs of Meadville. Coaches Nels White and Jamie Plunkett were looking for signs of progress from their respective teams. The atmosphere was electric as the teams engaged in a fast paced opening minutes. With no score and Meadville killing a penalty, Brian Bahurinsky got an opportunity in front but was stopped by Rob Allison at 8:39. Cathedral Prep struck first as Jon Merriott walked off the near boards and beat Danny O'Sharuk on the glove side upstairs to give the visitors a 1-0 lead. In the second period, Prep stud Jeff Dionosio nearly made it 2-0 after a big center ice hit by Kyle Rogers at 12:35. Meadville's Jeffrey Holabaugh banked the puck off Allison from behind the goal line to tie the score at 1-1 at 10:13 of the middle frame. Prep had an opportunity to regain the lead but O'Sharuk stopped Mike Boling on the breakaway at 6:30 and the the Dawgs still had the lead. Then Dionosio scored an unbelievable goal as whle being upended in front of the net he scored in one motion on the short side and all the sudden the game was Prep 2 Meadville 1. Just a minute later it was Bahurinsky beating the Rambler defense and creating a 2 on 1 and then slipped a pass to Phil Siverd who deflected the puck past Allison at 3:29 to tie the score at 2-2. Then the Dawgs got that big goal with just one second remaining in the second period as Justin Wehrle intercepted a clearing attempt and walked down the slot and beat Allison on the stick side to make it 3-2. On to the third and the next goal would be huge and the Bulldogs got it as Bahurinsky scored on the breakaway at 13:24 to make it 4-2. Then Rick Thomas blasted a shot from the point at 6:39 to add a big insurance goal and pace the Bulldogs to a 5-2 lead. Prep kept fighting back and scored at 8:04 as Dionosio got behind the Meadville defense and scored on the rebound. O'Sharuk had to come up with a big save on Kyle Rogers at 4:10. Rogers came right back and beat O'Sharuk at 3:25 through the five hole to cut the lead to 5-4. Prep pulled their goalie for the extra attacker and Holabaugh scored on a 150 foot clearing attempt to finalize a 6-4 victory for the Bulldogs.

MONROEVILLE - Please do not adjust your cursor or try to scroll to the top of the story because this line is the first line of the story. You can look at the 3 inches above this story in one of two ways.....one would be the Golden Mile Parking lot covered in snow or the other would be what happened in the first two periods of the Class AAA showdown between Gateway and Central Catholic. .......And for Viking coach Kevin Zielmanski, that would just be fine because he probably figured that the more boring the game is the better. Coach Dan Serakowski's Gateway club has put it on some teams this season and has the explosive kind of offense that can snatch victory from defeat as it did against Baldwin in its first game. So coach Z had to like the 0-0 tie after two periods. The most excitement was the near misses by the Vikings Zach Crisafio, who fanned on an opene net at 9:50 of the 2nd and the Gators Zach Flora, who fanned on an open net at 5:29 of the second. At 12:09 of the third period, Central Catholic went on the power play an they would cash in at 10:12 when Crisafio redirected a Michael McGurk pass thorugh the legs of David Himes to give Central a 1-0 lead. The Vikings continue to carry the play to Gateway and with only 1:33 to play Matt Urso scored on the deke past Himes to give CC a huge goal and a 2-0 lead. Urso added an empty netter with :08 left to salt away a 3-0 victory an a shutout for Bryan Adamczyk.

CRANBERRY - {Special to Pa Hockey} Bethel Park outshot North Hills 38-9 on the evening but the only score came off the stick of NH's Tyler Cummings, who scored with :02 left in regulation to give the Indians a 1-0 victory over the three-time defending Pa State AAA Champions.