Butler Toronadoes

HARMARVILLE ~ Fox Chapel 6 Norwin 2 Fox Chapel is looking forward to this season as a redemption to its greatest in club history as last season, they finished with a great regular season and then exited the playoffs courtesy of Upper St Clair. Jim Damp wants to prove the critics wrong and lead the Foxes to the Penguins Cup similar to his feat with Franklin Regional in 2002. The Norwin hockey program should be proud of one thing that they accomplished before the season even started. The Knights made a decision to stay in Class AAA rather than move onto to the ‘Glorified Junior Varsity’ Open Division and this will serve their program well going forward as they compete in Western Pa Hockey’s highest division. Head coach Dave Warren is back for his second campaign and was looking to pull off an upset in the opener. Fox Chapel opened up a 2-0 lead in the first period as Justin Kreps and Matt Quigley scored. Norwin matched FC stride for stride, especially in the physical play, which resulted in Fox Chapel running around a little and taking some penalties. Crafty Norwin forward Jim Recupero was giving the FC defense fits and almost scored at 11:28 hitting the crossbar. The Knights went on the power play at 8:10 and then a two-man advantage at 7:51 and finally cashed in as Recupero gathered the puck stopped on a dime in between the circles and beat Thiessen on a wrist shot through the 5-hole at 7:27 to cut the lead to 2-1. The Knights may have been a little too aggressive on their remaining power play with the dreaded pinching defenseman and this played right into Fox Chapel’s hands as Matt Quigley got behind the Norwin defense and buried a backhand upstairs for a shorthanded tally at 7:05. Just 8 seconds later, it was Quigley again completing the hat trick and banging home a rebound past Mike Pochan to extend the Foxes lead to 4-1. Adam Petrovich added another goal as he took a beautiful feed from Quigley and deposited it upstairs to take a 5-1 lead to the locker room. Norwin’s Jim Recupero [2nd] and Matt Quigley [his 4th goal in a 6 point night] traded goals in the 3rd period and Fox Chapel was victorious over Norwin 6-2.