Central Catholic Vikings

Central Catholic mounts big comeback ! HARMARVILLE ~ Holy Ghost Prep skipper Brian Tibbels was liking his trip to Pittsburgh after the second period of the Firebirds game against Central Catholic with a 2-0 lead on goals by Josh Steaker and Jack Hillock and an opening big win against Penn Hills. Especially, since his big gun Ryan Gunderson didn't make the trip. Central Catholic erased all of that as Chris Niznik, Eddie Martin and Matt Graboski scored three goals in a little over four minutes to pace the Vikings to a 3-2 win. Brian Adamczyk made some excellent saves to keep his team in the game and to preserve an exciting victory to put his team one win from a semi-final appearance.

TJ has a new look with similar results ! HARMARVILLE - Franklin Regional has played well at time this season as exemplified by a big 8-4 win over Baldwin Friday night and have struggled at times as witnessed by a 9-1 thumping at the hands of Cathedral Prep last Monday. Coach Jim Damp was looking for consistency from his club in the CC Invitational. Thomas Jefferson has matured into a nice club this season under the newly acclaimed tenure of coaching from Don Powell, who has led the Jaguars to three State AA Championships. The Jaguars are also sporting some awesome looking new uniforms to sport their new image. After Dakota Drew put Franklin on top in the first period, TJ scored four unanswered goals from CJ Parkinson, Luke Wawrzeniak, Zach Hanbury and Eric Holzer to build a 4-1 lead after two periods. FR's Mike Mirzibeigi and TJ's Grant Heinauer exchanged goals as Thomas Jefferson positioned themselves for a big showdown with Plum to claim the D Division move onto the semi finals for the first time since their 2000 Central Catholic Invitational championship.

Serra Catholic likes them BM or MB ! HARMARVILLE - Serra coach John Mooney was looking for ways to help his team to get motivated to play Philadelphia AAA power Monsignor Bonner without stars Steve Leppo and Jessie Lubasch. The first way would be to tell his goaltender Tim Johnson to imagine that they were playing Bishop McCort.....who Johnson has had great success.....change the "BM" to "MB" and Johnson will deliver...sounds reasonable. Johnson stopped 38 of 40 shots as teammates CJ King [3 goals] and Cody Moy [2 goals] paced to Eagles to a 6-2 victory over the Friars.

CRANBERRY - Latrobe coach Ron Makoski is starting to like the Wildcats move to AAA for the 2002-2003 season as his team is undefeatedat 2-0-0. North Hills started out with three quick wins and has dropped its last two including a stunning loss to upstart Penn Trafford last week. The Indians got on the scoreboard as John Adams scored at 6:32 of the opening period as North Hills took the lead to the locker room. Latrobe came out storming in the second period as Jordan Miller scored at 11:41 and then again at 6:08 to give the Wildcats a 2-1 lead. Matt Makoski extended that lead to 3-1 just 1:08 later at the five minute mark and Latrobe went on to win behind fine goaltending by Josh Gross, who stopped 22 of 23 North Hills shots.

CRANBERRY - Brian Hershberger's Tigers have opened the season with a monsterous schedule over the opening five games for 2002-2003.....factor Mt Lebanon, Meadville, Bethel Park and Franklin Regional and it couldn't get much tougher, so the scheduling gods put Central Catholic in line. You see, since Kevin Z has been at Central, the Vikings have never been under .500 until this season's 1-2-0 start. In fact, some of the young Vikings are taking it personal to climb out of the albatross in the PIHL North division. After a scoreless first period, North Allegheny took the lead as Brian Lancaster found Bill Waldschmidt in the slot, who beat Brian Adamczak to make it 1-0. Central's Joe Coulter scored at 8:53 on the backhand to tie the score at 1-1. NA regained the lead at 3:24 as Brian Maloney poked home a Tim Ward rebound and the Tigers took a 2-1 lead to the final period. Central was now pressing for the equalizer and carried the play early in the third and they got it as CJ Bruce took a nice setup from Coulter to tie the score at 2-2. NA made a mistake by giving the Vikings the power play at 9:50. It didn't take long for Central to make them pay as Eddie Martin walked off the far boards beat an NA defender and snapped a wicked shot upstairs to give CC its first lead 3-2 at 8:43. Central continued to bottle up the Tigers and while killing a penalty in the waning moments thought they had iced the game as Matt Capalongo's apparent shorthanded goal was waived off at 1:44. The Vikings finally got the insurance tally as Bruce added an empty netter with 37 seconds left to insure a 4-2 Central Catholic win.