Moon Tigers

KITTANNING - Kittanning head coach Jeff Smouse has been tossing and turning in his sleep lately. His Wildcat team proved all the doubters wrong last season by storming to a Penguin Cup Semi-Final berth before losing to Indiana. After his squad won the Kittanning Invitational, coach Smouse knew his squad was ready for a wakeup call if they weren't careful. Moon, on the other hand, has been a work in process for a couple of years now and has made the playoffs the past few seasons. The Tigers seem poised to make some noise this season and head coach Eric Boring has his squad going in the right direction as they faced a big test at the Belmont before a decent early season crowd. The Tigers were off and running at the 8:56 mark as Kodu Underwood gave Moon a 1-0 lead. Kittanning answered a minute and a half later as Joel Underwood took a nice feed from Zach Cain to tie the score on the power play at 7:16. Moon regained the lead as lanky power forward Hendrick Norden fended off a Wildcat defender and slipped a backhander past Adam Toy at 5:40 to make it 2-1. In the second period, the defense tightened and Moon was only able to muster three shots and that was all they would need as they made them all count to break open a tight contest. Norden intercepted an errant clearing attempt and wristed one past Toy at 11:25. Underwood converted a Brad Alayon pass from the slot at 10:47 and Alayon walked down Broadway at 8:33 to give the Tigers a 5-1 lead at the break. Moon's keeper Aaron Russell was stoning Kittanning at the other end stopping 28 of 29 shots on the night. While the Wildcats pressed to make something happen, Moon capitalized on an odd man rush as Underwood completed the hat trick at 9:21 on a beautiful setup by Hendrick Norden to put an exclamation point on a 5-1 Moon win.

MONROEVILLE - The Baldwin Highlanders have targeted the 2002-2003 seaon as the end of a drought. It has been twelve years since the Highlanders have tasted playoff competition and 15 years since they won a State Title in 1988. Head coach Mike Cox, who played for the Highlanders in the 1980's is in the second year of a rebuilding program which looks to be taking shape as his squad knocked off Upper St Clair in its opener. Gateway on the other hand is looking to extinguish its struggles over the past few years of not getting past round two of the playoffs and more recently a year ago when the Gators let tie games or leads in the third peiod slip away to 6 losses and 6 ties. Enter Dan Serakowski, two years removed from leading Allderdice to a Penguin Cup final appearance in 2001, to try to lead the Gators to the promised land. After a very evenly played first period, the game looked to go to the first intermission as a scoreless tie, but Zach Flora picked up a loose puck in the neutral zone and bursted down the off wing and fired a shot past Baldwin's Matt King to give Gateway a 1-0 lead. Early in the second, Baldwin's speedy forward Alex Del Greco drove around the Gateway defense and beat David Himes cleanly on the forehand and the game was tied at one apiece. Gateway went on the power play a minute later and King stopped several chances until the Gators Steve Daniels found Flora with a cross ice pass and Zach buried it to make it 2-1 Gateway at 10:27. Lou Del Greco had a breakaway behind the Gator defense but Himes stoned him at 9:27 of the middle frame. On to the third and Baldwin's Ray Wilhelm tied the score at 2-2. The Highlanders had the better of the play in the third and went on the power play with 2:27 remaining. It took just 8 seconds as Chris Falce blasted a shot on the ice from the left point to give Baldwin a 3-2 lead with 2:19 left. Now the Gators had their backs againt the wall and they pulled the goaltender and Flora found that loose puck in the slot and wristed a shot past Matt King with :49 left and the game was tied 3-3. Off the faceoff, the puck found its way on to the stick of Matt Kopaczynski, who beat the Baldwin defender to the puck and pulled it around the Baldwin goaltender and fired home the game winner with 30 seconds remaining and Gateway pulled out a thrilling 4-3 victory on their opening night.

An appetizer for all you fanatics out there is the Pa Hockey previews ............which gives a look at he Elite 8 as voted by our illustrious panel of coaches, which a couple of surprises and some new kids on the block ...........let the season begin and best of luck to all of the teams as the season starts Friday night !!

Schedule and Results of all Western Pennsylvania Teams

GREENSBURG - Plum and Greensburg CC squared off in the GCC Invitational finals in a renewal of two old WPIHL AA rivals through the mid 1990's. In fact the last time they played a key game a kid by the name of Umberger was skating for the Mustangs and GCC was coming off a AA State Championship. Anyway, Plum Head Coach Stu Relnick was looking to see how his young club would respond to a pressure game against a very well balanced Centarian squad with new skipper Joe Dytka. Plum scored first in the contest at 8:34 as Travis Senchur scored to givethe Mustangs 1-0 lead. Greensburg Central responded on the power play as Colin Ludwig took a Matt Ward feed in between the circles and fired a blast past BJ Schreib to knot the score at one apiece. In a game with good action and equal scoring opportunities Plum and GCC battled into the second period and the score remained 1-1. Then that combination showed another look as Ludwig cycled off a Ward pass and backhanded a shot upstairs past Schreib to give the Centarians their first lead at 5:04 of the middle frame at 2-1. On to the third peiod and the Mustangs were pressing for the equalizer outshooting GCC 8-3 . It was Jake Genes who snuffed Plum and held them off the board including a point blank save on John Kalichuk with 3:02 remaining. The Centarians went on to hold on and win their own Invitational and serve notice to Class AA that the will be a factor come playoff time.