Seneca Valley Raiders

CASTLE SHANNON – Bethel Park won the 2005 Pennsylvania Class AAA title by excellent goaltending, hard work and timely goal scoring. Head Coach Jim McVay’s team opened the season with a loss to North Allegheny and has reeled off four consecutive victories over some good competition including USC 4-2 within the past few weeks. The Hawks are trying to keep pace with Mt Lebanon, who has established themselves as the top team early on in Class AAA. The Panthers have opened the season with a 4-1-0 record and have done so on the strength of their top offensive line of Mike Penkrot, David Crockett and Jono Lohman, who have provided the majority of the offense. Coach John Harford knows USC will need defense and goaltending to spar with the likes of Bethel Park, North Allegheny, Meadville and ultimately Mt Lebanon. This early season has established that the Penguins Cup chase may be a five team race, with the Blue Devils being the early season team of choice. As we learned a year ago, the race could have a clear frontrunner, which ultimately may not win it all, hence North Allegheny, who did everything to win it and fell short giving up just one goal in the entire playoffs, but even that superb performance only yielded a Penguins Cup finalist tag. Upper St Clair started the scoring midway through the first period as David Crockett gave the Panthers a 1-0 lead. Bethel Park outshot USC 6-4 and their best chance to score came as Kye Budziszewski’s shot from the right point hit the post with 26 seconds left. The Panthers and Hawks traded power play chances late in the opening period and into the second and the score remained 1-0. Bethel Park had a great opportunity to tie the game as Tim O’Brien walked down the slot only to be stopped by Kevin Gorder. Paul Crockett’s clearing out of the zone wandered into the neutral zone and Mike Penkrot beat the BP defense to the puck and then beat Pete Cosentino on the backhand with 8:30 left to give the Panthers a 2-0 lead. Bethel Park went back on the power play at 4:54 but St Clair would capitalize as Mike Penkrot got behind the Hawk defense again and snapped a shot up under the crossbar, which appeared to go in, but Dave Crockett made sure slamming home the loose puck on the doorstep for a shorthanded goal and a 3-0 lead with 4:20 remaining in period # 2. BP went on a 5 on 3 with 3:44 remaining and Kenny Lehmann made it count as he scored on the 2nd rebound to make it 3-1. Bethel Park dominated the 3rd period and had 3 more power plays, but could not beat Kevin Gorder, who stopped 24 of 25 shots on the evening. While the Hawks pressured and created opportunity, Gorder stopped Tim O’Brien at 12:43, Kenny Lehmann at 10:27 and several other key stops to preserve an impressive 3-1 win at the Ice Castle.