Seneca Valley Raiders

CORAOPOLIS – Quaker Valley has had another outstanding regular season under coach Kevin Quinn at 15-2-1 and currently sits at 15-2-1, with lone blemishes against Serra (8-2) and Bishop McCort (2-1). The Quakers will enjoy a first round bye and clinched the West Division title with a victory over Sewickley Academy on Valentines Day 5-3. All of this is great for QV and tonight they celebrated Senior Night. In addition, there was a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette photographer on hand to take pictures of Furman South, [to no avail because he left before South showed] a Pa Hockey top 25 selection, who has not played in any Quaker Valley games I have attended and covered. I am sure he will participate in 10 to be eligible for the playoffs under the Pennsylvania High School Hockey Championships rules,but I know he hasn’t participated in 75% of the QV games, which will make him ineligible for Team Pittsburgh. South is the key figure in ANY chances that the Quakers will have of defeating Serra or Bishop McCort, but on this snowy night in Hooterville, he is off fulfilling Mr Haney’s contract obligations and would show up later in our story. In addition, super freshmen players Tim Hall and Grant Scott were not in uniform to face Mars, a team the Quakers may face in round 2 of the playoffs. Mars has really turned their program around in 2004-2005 under 2nd year coach Eric Glover, clinching a playoff spot and with a victory over Quaker Valley, could sneak into a home playoff berth and a bye should they overtake Sewickley Academy in the seasons final week. The Planets are a far cry from a 6-15-1 team a year ago and will be a darkhorse at best to get into the Penguins Cup semis, which happen three years ago for Mars. At 5:47 of the first period, Wil Forser opened the scoring with a wrist shot from between the circles past Bryan Ross to give the Quakers a 1-0 lead. QV continued to pressure the Planets and forced a penalty putting QV on the power play at 4:14. Ross made an excellent save on a wide open George Jackson at 3:41 and Mars killed off the penalty and the score remained 1-0 after the first after complete domination of the 2nd half of the period by QV. The Quakers went back on the man advantage at 14:09 of the 2nd period, which was killed again by the Planets. At 8:23 of the 2nd, QV took advantage of a miscue by the Mars defense as Bret McNamara walked down the slot and scored on the wrist shot for a 2-0 Quaker lead. At 4:50, Mars went on the power play and had some nice pressure until they were whistled for goaltender interference for running over Zac Zinger. At 13:10 of the 3rd period, Noah Zamagias scored on a wraparound to make it 3-0 and conveniently Furman South took a seat on the bench. Kelly Elson celebrated Senior Night with a goal at 9:05 to extend the lead to 4-0 and the Quakers were looking to move into a big rematch with Serra next Monday at Rostraver. Mars went on the power play after an unsportsmanlike penalty with 7:04 left, but did not get many chances, the best coming after the penalty had expired but was stopped by Zac Zinger, who stopped all 13 shots that the Planets had for a 4-0 victory for Quaker Valley.