Butler Toronadoes

3/24/04 ~ Mt Lebanon grabs lead & holds on to advance to PC PITTSBURGH – Upper St Clair coach Kip Guenther pulled a major media heist in the second round of the Penguins Cup playoffs against Fox Chapel, which was probably learned from his days as an assistant for Jim McVay at Bethel Park, who is the master at impersonating Joe Paterno. Guenther had everyone including Fox Chapel convinced that his team was prepared to play a run and gun game similar to the 6-5 overtime win over Plum in the 1st round of the playoffs. What Upper St. Clair did was to tighten their defensive system, shadow Matt Quigley in an attempt to shut down the Foxes top line, and have the hot line of Davy Crockett, Mike Penkrot and freshman Andrew Blazek continue to fill the net as they did for five of six goals against Plum and for six of the eight goals against Fox Chapel. This change in philosophy has produced wonderful results and would be severely tested against a Mt Lebanon team which pummeled the Panthers 8-2 less than a month ago. USC Would have to do this without Kris McDonough, one of the top defenseman in Western Pa, who has decided to pursue a promising baseball career, and whose services will be lost at Upper St Clair. Mt Lebanon has been the top rated team all year in Class AAA and when the Blue Devils defeated Central Catholic 7-2 and Meadville 2-1 in an exhibition in February, it established them as the favorites for the 2004 Class AAA Penguins Cup. Lebo coach Paul Taibi has been very diligent about keeping his team focused on the task at hand, but in their second round playoff game against Bethel Park, something changed. Mt Lebanon beat the Blackhawks after getting a break in a game in which they dominated, but remained in the balance until the 3rd period when a shot by Bethel’s Michael Diethorn, that is still being debated as to whether it went in OR hit the post. Needless to say the Blue Devils talent and very discipline overcame the Hawks 3-0, but the # 1 seed in the playoffs played more like scared rabbits than the dominant team they have been all season. Mt Lebanon came out in the first period and dominated USC outshooting the Panthers 10-4. One mistake by the Panther defense proved costly as Brian Colligan intercepted a errant clearing attempt and deposited behind Kevin Gorder for a 1-0 lead at 13:33. The game remained a one goal game until 12:33 of the second period when Tony Valerino made a great pass to set up Michael Jordan, who beat Gorder through the 5-hole to make it 2-0. Mt Lebanon became a little overzealous with their lead and USC’s John Markwell had a wide open net to shoot at 12:13, but Matt Vaughn made a spectacular diving save to keep USC off the board. USC went on the power play at 6:21 of the second and red hot Davy Crockett buried a wrist shot on a great back door pass from Mike Penkrot at 5:43 to cut the lead to 2-1. Penkrot had an excellent chance to tie the game, but Vaughn made a better save at 4:12. Mt Lebanon clamped down in the 3rd period and played smart hockey and great defensively, particularly defenseman Jeff Simons and the Blue Devils forwards, who provided great backchecking to limit USC to 5 shots in the 3rd and 15 on the night. Mt Lebanon would hold on for a 2-1 victory setting up a big showdown with Meadville on Sunday March 28th at the Mellon Arena.