Butler Toronadoes

HARMARVILLE – Deer Lakes defeated Forest Hills Wednesday night in Johnstown by the score of 10-3 as Matt DiSanti tallied five goals. So coach Al Pawloski was licking his chops at the opportunity to face Mars since they would be without top forwards Bob Finney and Jim Roche, who are vacationing in Colorado. Mars, on the other hand, saw its perfect season go down the tubes last week as Roche, Finney, Bobby Beckert and Steve Meyers were out of town with their amateur teams and the Planets fell to Blackhawk 9-4. Mars had requested a schedule change early in the season, knowing that these players would be out of town and didn’t get a return phone call from the PIHL, which is a common ‘shell game’ tactic if your school is not in the favor of a pathetically run organization. Not to say that I in favor of changing games, which I am not, but when there are at least three dozen games which have been changed by the PIHL, why wasn’t Mars given an opportunity? Well, maybe since they are tied with Serra for the # 1 seed now, that’s all we need to know! Well, enough of that …..people get upset and start writing e-mails when objectivity and honesty surfaces and besides Deer Lakes was here for a hockey game and not another one of ‘those’ boring ‘twisted facts’ editorials, right ? Stop it ! Mars opened up the scoring as Pa Hockey top 25 selection Steve Meyers took advantage of an opportunity to play forward with a goal at 12:23 for a 1-0 lead. The Lancers netminder Roman Drivenosky stopped the Mars onslaught with the best chance coming off the stick of Bobby Beckert with 2:15 remaining, but the big Planet forward would get the final say as he banged home a rebound with :49 seconds left after three cracks to give Mars a 2-0 lead. Bryan Ross kept the high scoring Lancers off the board stopping DiSanti at 10:57. Meyers appeared to go up 3-0 at 7:08 but the goal was whistled down on a high stick. Drivenosky made a nice stop on a Beckert re-direction at 5:52 and the score remained 2-0 until with 2:28 remaining Steve Meyers walked through the DL defense and beat the goaltender on the forehand for his second goal and a 3-0 advantage. DiSanti came right back on a similar goal to Meyers just twelve seconds later to get the Lancers on the board at 3-1. On to the third period and Beckert scored his second goal at 11:45 to put the Planets on top 4-2. Bryan Ross made a splendid save on Andreas Backstrom at 7:45 but the Lancers kept plugging and DiSanti scored a power play goal with 6:39 left and the lead was cut to 4-3. But the night belonged to Meyers and Mars as the senior forward / defenseman took the puck from the center zone and warded off defenders and jammed home a shot on the forehand to give Mars a 5-3 victory and hope for that # 1 seed.