Seneca Valley Raiders

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.