Butler Toronadoes

HARMARVILLE - A rematch of an overtime thriller in last years Penguins Cup semi finals took place last night before a good crowd at Harmarville. Central Catholic was looking for payback from the overtime defeat suffered at the hands of Bethel Park, which spurred the Hawks on to their third straight Pennsylvania AAA crown. Coach Kevin Zielmanski's squad has been strong through the middle of the season with a 9-0-1 mark in its last ten games and was looking foward to facing its nemesis Bethel Park. Bethel Park has matured after losing a bus full of seniors from last years squad and some leftover Hawks and some new ones have molded into a pretty mature and poised club through the midway point of the season. Head coach Jim McVay has to be pleased that some of his younger players have filled the jerseys very well in leading the Hawks to a 12-1-2 start. The first period was tight checking and featured some excellent defensive work and backchecking by both clubs and remained scoreless. With Bethel on its second power play of the evening Jacobus Bleik lofted a shot from the left side which Viking netminder Bryan Adamczak kicked aside, unfortunately for Central, Michael Diethorn was positioned perfectly high in the slot and he buried a wrister to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead. The second period was much like the first as the teams worked to gain opportunities while limiting mistakes. Bethel Park started to stretch the ice and Brandon Hanley looked to be onside behind the Viking defense, but the breakaway was blown dead on the offsides with a little over four minutes left in the middle frame. That would turn out to be huge as Eddie Martin found Matt Capalongo behind the Hawk defense and he beat Matt Feige with the backhand to tie the game at 1-1 with just 36 seconds left. On to the third and CC had a golden opportunity on the power play at 13:20 as Joe Coulter was alone in front but just missed an open shot on Feige. Central had power play opportunities, but a combination of poised Bethel Park penalty killing and impatience by the Vikings kept the score tied at 1-1. Then McVay got the line mismatch he wanted and with 4:51 Brandon Hanley found Grady Clingan [who had five penalties in the Hawks prior game against North Allegheny which should have been a Game Misconduct but was eliminated when the penalty was changed by the referees after the game] alone in front and he chipped the puck past Adamczak to give Bethel Park a 2-1 lead. Central Catholic came right back as Michael McGurk got loose behind the Bethel Park defense and beat Feige on the backhand at 3:19 to tie the game with just 3:19 left. But the Hawks showed their resilience as Brandon Hanley, on a great individual effort, warded off all-star defenseman Chris Niznik and as he was falling down got enough stick on his shot to score in the lower corner and give BP the lead with exactly 3:00 to go. Central was not done yet as they received a power play with 1:23 left and Coach Z pulled the goalie for a 6 on 4 advantage.....Bethel killed in with a little help from the Vikings, who lacked patience and forced shots. Matt Feige was outstanding again stopping 20 of 22 Central shots in a 3-2 victory for Bethel Park.