Butler Toronadoes

DELMONT - The Plum Mustangs have been one of the surprise teams of Class AAA during the early part of the 2004-2005 campaign with a 5-1-1 record, good for first place in the North Division. Coach Stu Rulnick’s squad is coming off a hard fought 3-3 tie with McDowell in Erie and looking to continue their strong defensive play that has yielded just 14 goals in 7 games, which is among the best in Class AAA. Penn Trafford is also in first place in the East Division and has also only yielded 14 goals and to consider that half were given up in one game against Mt Lebanon, coach Todd Purvis has to be please with the defensive effort of his team. The Warriors were impressive in a battle for first place defeating rival Franklin Regional 6-1 in their last outing, but the victory proved costly as a couple of key players drew suspensions during a late game scuffle with their divisional rivals. While Plum was missing one of its leading scorers Jon Smith, the Warriors suspensions from their previous game against Franklin Regional made absent Chris Cerutti and Joe Meehan, along with Nick Whaley who was just plain absent. Plum carried the play in the 1st Period outshooting PT 10-5 and missed a golden opportunity on their first power play at 12:12 when Mike Renna had a wide open net and hit the post. The Mustangs would strike first at 10:56 as Phil Mains blazing wrist shot found the upper corner past Joel Sterniak for a power play goal and a 1-0 lead. At 7:43 with Plum shorthanded, Mains stood up a PT forward at blueline and sent Giunta in on breakaway SH and stopped by Sterniak with a leg save. On to the 2nd Period and Penn Trafford would tie the game when at 14:32 Kyle Sidle burst down the off wing and roofed a wrist shot high over the glove side of Brandon King to tie the game at one apiece. Plum picked up their game at this point, but could not beat Sterniak with several good chances, the best coming as Matt Giunta was stopped on another breakaway stopped by Sterniak at 13:20. The action late in the period would have a huge impact in the outcome of this contest as with :35 left, Kyle Sidle intercepted pass in neutral zone and burst into zone on breakaway and Brandon King made nice stop. Plum would answer as with just :12 on the clock Phil Mains scored on his own rebound after great save by Sterniak after feed by Giunta to slot and Plum took a 2-1 to the locker room for the ice cut. The Mustangs would continue their strong play in the third period as Joel Sterniak made a sprawling save on Ginuta point blank at 8:30 to keep it a one goal game. Plum continued to apply the pressure on PT and with 2:21 left & 1:31 in PP for Plum, the Mustangs would just need to kill the clock. The icing on the cake came at 1:41 when Ben Colusmo found a loose puck in front and chipped it past Sterniak after nice play by David Dincau to move puck in front through traffic to make the final score 3-1 in favor of the Mustangs in a battle of division leaders.