Seneca Valley Raiders

2005 Greensburg CC Final Greensburg CC 5 Norwin 2 On the trek to Greensburg Kirk Nevin arena, I couldn’t help to reflect about the many drives to practice each Thursday to Kirk Nevin for my high school team. What I really looked forward to knowing that every practice and every game, each of my teammates would be there with one single goal in mind, a league championship and a state championship, which our team accomplished in 1979 and came within one game of in 1980. In those days, there were travel teams and amateur programs and those teams played on the weekend and the high schools played during the week. The concept was that players would be afforded the ability to play for both teams and have the advantage of getting as much ice time as possible to improve their skills. A novel idea! In those days, there was as much debate as there is now about High School vs Amateur or Travel and that theory was put to test my senior year as my high school team participated in the annual Laurel Tournament, which is still held at Kirk Nevin and we beat the Westmoreland Midget AAA Team handily 5-1 in the Finals and were never invited back. So all of these people from THIS era [many of who coincidentally are now parents of current players] who want to tell me about their AAA midget programs and Junior B teams and how great that hockey is….my answer is to schedule the games. North Allegheny, Bethel Park and Meadville have a long history of not being afraid to play the AAA or AA midget or Junior B teams [which they did last season], but all I heard about was how the Junior B’s and the Midget AAA’s would beat them by eight or nine goals. When these players put up 100 goals in a 20 something season like Mike Sargo did for Gateway or John Mooney did for Serra Catholic, I will be a believer and both of those guys played travel hockey too and on the flip side, Ryan Malone and RJ Umberger, who played Division 1 and are now professional hockey players both played High School Hockey! Greensburg CC has a long history of winning teams including three Pennsylvania State Championships in the early to mid-1990’s with the last coming in 1996 with a victory over Upper Darby at the Johnstown War Memorial under coach Butch Marrietta. Current head coach Bill Bucholtz knows the Centurians were close to a run a year ago with hard fought 2-1 loss to eventual Pa AA champs Peters Twp in the Elite 8. With a strong nucleus returning led by sophomore goaltender Ryan Homanics and sophomore scoring machine Alfonso Arevalo, GCC could be one of the teams looking to take the next step in the process back to prominence in Class AA. All of the Centurians were present and accounted for cause they have a goal in mind from a year ago. The Norwin hockey program has been stuck in the mode of Class AAA whipping boys for the likes of the Bethel Park’s, Mt Lebanon’s, Meadville’s, etc. Coach Dave Warren likes the early season success of the Knights as they entered this evening’s Greensburg CC Invitational final on a roll of four straight victories including a heartstopping overtime win over Plum. The guarded optimism is that Norwin must have ALL of their guns in the lineup. Their best player and in my opinion one of the better returning forwards in Class AAA, Jimmy Recupero was noticeably absent and had a date with the Penguin [not the Penguins] for a mandatory October reindeer practice and is not allowed to come play with his team and his friends in front of neighbors and peers in a game of significance that the Norwin program has seen in a long time. So what would and should have been a match-up of this tournament’s two top talents was only left for imagination. With a packed house of GCC fans and Norwin students and faithful, the game began and GCC looked confident from the outset. At 13:47, the Centarians Evan George walked off the near board and slipped a wrist shot through the 5-hole of Mike Pochan for an early 1-0 GCC advantage. Then at 11:26 of the opening on the power play, the Centurians struck again as Frank Jupena whipped through the slot and lofted a backhander past the stick side of Pochan to make it 2-0. At 10:43, Dave Ulishney pounced on a loose puck in tight and deposited it past the Norwin goaltender to make it a quick 3-0 lead. The Knights would have an opportunity to get back in the game with a power play after the 3rd GCC goal in the first, which it failed, but made the best of a second chance at 7:48 as Mike Ulicny fought off the Centurian defenders and scored on a second rebound to put Norwin within striking distance at 3-1. Greensburg kept up the pressure on the Norwin defense and Dave Mattock cashed in at 4:02 for a 4-1 GCC stronghold on the game. On to the second we went and GCC continued the onslaught on Norwin goaltender Mike Pochan as Dan Seijk scored at 9:11 to make it a 5-1 advantage. With 1:39 remaining in the second, the Norwin faithful had something to cheer about as Jesse Kunkle burying a shot past Homanic on the power play to cut the lead to 5-2. So Norwin had to face the third period with an uphill climb of being down three without their difference maker and as well Phil Gigliotti, who went down with an injury in the 2nd. Mike Pochan returned to the form of the Plum game making a stop on the sniper Arevalo at 13:09. The Knights would have another chance on the power play at 12:27, but would not capitalize. Another power play at 8:30 for Norwin and nothing to show for it. Then frustration with 5 ½ left as the Knights took a penalty and GCC retaliated. The final count would turn out 5-2 in favor of the Centurians of Greensburg CC and their third title in four years as the teams headed toward the regular season in two weeks.