Mt Lebanon Blue Devils - 1976 & 2006 AAA

SOUTHPOINTE ~ West Allegheny coach Sean Hart has watched has his team has compiled a 5-9-2 record over the seasons first 16 games and the Indians have lost to all of the teams ahead of them in the standings including Kittanning, Montour, Indiana, Pine Richland, Thomas Jefferson [twice], Peters Twp, Canevin and Trinity. If the Penguins Cup playoffs began today, West Allegheny is sitting in 12th place and would travel to Indiana, but as it stands right now the Indians are holding on to that 12th spot by a mere half game over Moon. I think what coach Hart is looking at in the standings is what or who is in front with Trinity, Canevin and Greensburg CC all within reach, so tonight’s game had a little desperation to it. Canon McMillan has all but secured a playoff spot and should clinch home ice advantage for the playoffs, which are a month away. Coach Bob Fryer’s Big Macs or Lightning [not sure what their nickname is?] have been a pleasant surprise and held a top 5 ranking, until they got a little dose of reality as they were shelled by Kittanning last week by the score of 8-2. The Big Macs have played well against the better teams, which made this performance a little out of character. A nice turnout on just an awful night on the roads for Senior Night at Iceoplex, which is one of the best places in Western Pennsylvania to watch a hockey game, whether in the stands, which were pretty full or in Jay’s Restaurant. Canon Mac’s Shannon Anesetti was the story early as she stopped Mark Polidor at 13:54 and made an even better save on a tip from in front by Ryne Savitsky at 12:49. West Allegheny struck first as Polidor made a great move at the top of the circle faking to the right and firing a bullet to the left corner low on the stick side at 9:48 to give the Indians a 1-0 lead. At the other end, WA’s Dan Kuzio made nice save on Nick Godfrey at 8:45, but the Big Macs would tie it as Jeff Warnock muscled his way past two WA defenseman and lofted a wrist shot high over the glove side of Kuzio at 6:22. West Allegheny went on the 5 on 3 power play at 2:49 and Mark Polidor gave his team the lead on a rebound at 2:12. The West Allegheny super sophomore’s hooked up again to extend the lead as Ryne Savitsky took a great pass from Polidor and broke in all alone and beat Anesetti with a wicked backhander upstairs at 12:23 for a surmising 3-1 West Allegheny lead. Jesse Patnesky brought CM back within one on a nice play by Doug Stanton, who made West Allegheny pay for not clearing the zone and fed a wide open Patnesky for the tap in at 6:20. After Shannon Anesetti stopped Steve Sarachine in front, Polidor banged home the rebound to complete the hat trick at 4:21 and give the Indians a 4-2 lead. Sarachine would provide a big insurance tally at 10:44 of the third period on a nice pass from Polidor to make it 5-2 and Nick Godfrey would score on a rebound late in the final period at 1:27 to make the final 5-3 in favor of West Allegheny, who moved a little closer to securing a playoff spot.

NEW KENSINGTON ~ Keith Kearney has done a wonderful job in rebuilding the Fox Chapel program and bringing into first place in the East Division and has three solid lines, which have helped the Foxes to a 13-1-1 record and looking like a contender for the Penguins Cup. The solid goaltending of Senior Todd Hendry makes the Foxes an even more interesting team and FC has beaten some pretty good teams recently like Central Catholic, Butler and Plum. That is all great, but in order to be a contender you must beat one and my opinion for most of the season, which has been validated lately is that Mt Lebanon and Meadville are the favorites entering the playoffs, which is a little over a month away period. So this would be a big test for the Foxes and without getting into a long drawn out discussion about a certain player’s [who is a sophomore in high school’s] dreams, I will just simply state that NO team in Class AAA can win the Pennsylvania State Championship with a rent-a-player and the only one in recent memory who won a State Championship with them is Peters Twp in 2002 and 2003 and that team could have won it with me between the pipes. So trudging along is Jamie Plunkett, the Dean of Coaching of Interscholastic Scholastic Hockey in the State of Pennsylvania, whose Bulldogs will be looking to defend their State Championship from a year ago and has eight Pennsylvania Class AAA State Championships. Plunkett has retired many of opposing coaches into the amateur ranks, who wouldn’t play the Bulldogs because they couldn’t beat them and now these guys portray themselves as procurement specialists of ‘the Dream’. Maybe no one has ever heard of Ryan Smart, who walked right out of Meadville High School and played four years for Cornell University and then was drafted by the New Jersey Devils. He played four years for the Dawgs and picked up a few State Championship rings along the way, so anyone who tells me about the ‘Dream’ has never won a State Championship for their school. Meadville has re-written the book on it, Mt Lebanon is a contender for it and North Allegheny is working on it and Fox Chapel is # 4, until the beat somebody in the top 3. So what should have been a packed house at Harmarville, turned into an intimate gathering at the new Valley Sports Center and Adam Petrovitch had a great opportunity on a Bulldog turnover at 14:03, but was turned aside by Danny O’Sharuk. Fox Chapel’s Jason Kreps would put the Foxes on top on a great individual effort at 12:52 as he walked around the Meadville defense and shoved the puck past O’Sharuk for a 1-0 lead. Coach Kearney did a lot of line juggling in the opening period, but the guy they were trying to stop burned them as Christian Nickerson found the rebound at the 9:00 mark and poked it past Hendry for a tie game. O’Sharuk stopped Justin Kreps from point blank range at 8:37 to keep the game tied. The thing that make Meadville so dangerous that they get scoring from everyone in the lineup and hard working Shawn Harbaugh was the recipient of a great cross crease pass from Tyler ‘the forgotten one’ Learn and Harbaugh buried a shot down on the ice to give the Dawgs a 2-1 lead at 3:24. Fox Chapel had power plays late in the first and three more in the second, but something was missing on the Foxes power play as they managed only 8 shots and let a golden opportunity to seize this one slip away. Meadville on the other hand had some great defensive play and excellent penalty killing namely from Christian Nickerson, David Moyer, Nate Licinski and Phil Siverd to keep the lead at 2-1. On to the third period and the Bulldogs kept Fox Chapel at bay limiting the usually high powered Foxes to just 3 shots while pressuring Fox Chapel with twelve of their own for a shot advantage of 33-22 on the evening. Meadville finally found the knockout punch as David Moyer buried a slapshot on the ice through the 5-hole of Todd Hendry to give the Bulldogs a 3-1 lead with 6:51 remaining. Meadville controlled the play and the clock the rest of the way forcing Fox Chapel into undisciplined penalties and picked up a key 3-1 win over once, now twice beaten Fox Chapel. The dream lives and it took it show up Interstate 79 in preparation for another run !

NEW KENSINGTON ~ Keith Kearney has done a wonderful job in rebuilding the Fox Chapel program and bringing into first place in the East Division and has three solid lines, which have helped the Foxes to a 13-1-1 record and looking like a contender for the Penguins Cup. The solid goaltending of Senior Todd Hendry makes the Foxes an even more interesting team and FC has beaten some pretty good teams recently like Central Catholic, Butler and Plum. That is all great, but in order to be a contender you must beat one and my opinion for most of the season, which has been validated lately is that Mt Lebanon and Meadville are the favorites entering the playoffs, which is a little over a month away period. So this would be a big test for the Foxes and without getting into a long drawn out discussion about a certain player’s [who is a sophomore in high school’s] dreams, I will just simply state that NO team in Class AAA can win the Pennsylvania State Championship with a rent-a-player and the only one in recent memory who won a State Championship with them is Peters Twp in 2002 and 2003 and that team could have won it with me between the pipes. So trudging along is Jamie Plunkett, the Dean of Coaching of Interscholastic Scholastic Hockey in the State of Pennsylvania, whose Bulldogs will be looking to defend their State Championship from a year ago and has eight Pennsylvania Class AAA State Championships. Plunkett has retired many of opposing coaches into the amateur ranks, who wouldn’t play the Bulldogs because they couldn’t beat them and now these guys portray themselves as procurement specialists of ‘the Dream’. Maybe no one has ever heard of Ryan Smart, who walked right out of Meadville High School and played four years for Cornell University and then was drafted by the New Jersey Devils. He played four years for the Dawgs and picked up a few State Championship rings along the way, so anyone who tells me about the ‘Dream’ has never won a State Championship for their school. Meadville has re-written the book on it, Mt Lebanon is a contender for it and North Allegheny is working on it and Fox Chapel is # 4, until the beat somebody in the top 3. So what should have been a packed house at Harmarville, turned into an intimate gathering at the new Valley Sports Center and Adam Petrovitch had a great opportunity on a Bulldog turnover at 14:03, but was turned aside by Danny O’Sharuk. Fox Chapel’s Jason Kreps would put the Foxes on top on a great individual effort at 12:52 as he walked around the Meadville defense and shoved the puck past O’Sharuk for a 1-0 lead. Coach Kearney did a lot of line juggling in the opening period, but the guy they were trying to stop burned them as Christian Nickerson found the rebound at the 9:00 mark and poked it past Hendry for a tie game. O’Sharuk stopped Justin Kreps from point blank range at 8:37 to keep the game tied. The thing that make Meadville so dangerous that they get scoring from everyone in the lineup and hard working Shawn Harbaugh was the recipient of a great cross crease pass from Tyler ‘the forgotten one’ Learn and Harbaugh buried a shot down on the ice to give the Dawgs a 2-1 lead at 3:24. Fox Chapel had power plays late in the first and three more in the second, but something was missing on the Foxes power play as they managed only 8 shots and let a golden opportunity to seize this one slip away. Meadville on the other hand had some great defensive play and excellent penalty killing namely from Christian Nickerson, David Moyer, Nate Licinski and Phil Siverd to keep the lead at 2-1. On to the third period and the Bulldogs kept Fox Chapel at bay limiting the usually high powered Foxes to just 3 shots while pressuring Fox Chapel with twelve of their own for a shot advantage of 33-22 on the evening. Meadville finally found the knockout punch as David Moyer buried a slapshot on the ice through the 5-hole of Todd Hendry to give the Bulldogs a 3-1 lead with 6:51 remaining. Meadville controlled the play and the clock the rest of the way forcing Fox Chapel into undisciplined penalties and picked up a key 3-1 win over once, now twice beaten Fox Chapel. The dream lives and it took it show up Interstate 79 in preparation for another run !

NEW KENSINGTON ~ The Johnstown hockey program has hit the skids in the late 1990’s and into the 21st century and coach Tom Rizzo’s squad has improved to two victories in Class A, but considering how weak Class A hockey is this season, its hard to measure the improvement. An opportunity is the form of winless Valley presented itself for the Trojans. Valley, on the other hand, had one of its best outings of the year against a ranked team in Richland-Cambria before the Rams finally took control in the 3rd period and defeated the Vikings 6-2. In fact, although winless Valley has put up a pretty good battle with some of the better teams in Class A and maybe this would be the night the Vikings could break their 0-14-0 season and put a victory on the board. The first period was evenly played as the Vikings held a 9-8 shot advantage and took the lead late in the period as Anthony Perriello scored on the power play at 3:42 to give Valley a 1-0 lead. Perriello set up linemate Dave Roberts only twenty seconds late to extend the lead to 2-0. The Vikings were in rarified air at 7:01 of the second as Perriello added his 2nd goal on an assist from Roberts with a shorthanded tally for a 3-0 Viking lead. When Brandon Gazzo scored at 5:14, the Vikings were on their way to victory. Johnstown’s Marcus Botteicher broke Logan Harding’s shutout bid at 10:05 of the 3rd as Valley outshot Johnstown 32-20 on the evening and picked up their first victory of the season 4-1 over the Trojans. Special Thanks to Kevin Keller for this report

NEW KENSINGTON ~ The Johnstown hockey program has hit the skids in the late 1990’s and into the 21st century and coach Tom Rizzo’s squad has improved to two victories in Class A, but considering how weak Class A hockey is this season, its hard to measure the improvement. An opportunity is the form of winless Valley presented itself for the Trojans. Valley, on the other hand, had one of its best outings of the year against a ranked team in Richland-Cambria before the Rams finally took control in the 3rd period and defeated the Vikings 6-2. In fact, although winless Valley has put up a pretty good battle with some of the better teams in Class A and maybe this would be the night the Vikings could break their 0-14-0 season and put a victory on the board. The first period was evenly played as the Vikings held a 9-8 shot advantage and took the lead late in the period as Anthony Perriello scored on the power play at 3:42 to give Valley a 1-0 lead. Perriello set up linemate Dave Roberts only twenty seconds late to extend the lead to 2-0. The Vikings were in rarified air at 7:01 of the second as Perriello added his 2nd goal on an assist from Roberts with a shorthanded tally for a 3-0 Viking lead. When Brandon Gazzo scored at 5:14, the Vikings were on their way to victory. Johnstown’s Marcus Botteicher broke Logan Harding’s shutout bid at 10:05 of the 3rd as Valley outshot Johnstown 32-20 on the evening and picked up their first victory of the season 4-1 over the Trojans. Special Thanks to Kevin Keller for this report