Butler Toronadoes

Greensburg CC 6 Latrobe 2 GREENSBURG – Latrobe was off to a great start and leading the East Division with a 5-2-1 record. The Wildcats dropped two contests against Canon McMillan and Pine Richland to end the first half of the season, which puts them back on the playoff bubble in Class AA. Coach Ron Makoski’s club is young and should mature in the second half of the season, but it will be important for the Cats to put up some W’s in January and February should they have playoff aspirations. Greensburg CC is off to a 6-3-1 mark, which gives them a one game lead over the Wildcats in the East Division. The Centarians are fresh off an appearance in the Ice Line Extravaganza, where Bill Buchholtz’s club lost in the finals to 2005 Flyers Cup AA champions Haverford High Fords 4-3. GCC should have confidence after a very strong showing in Philadelphia, to spearhead a nice run in the 2nd half of the season and position themselves for the playoffs. Marc Perez opened the scoring for the Centurians with a rebound goal with 11:19 remaining in the opening period as GCC held a 9-2 shot advantage for the games first 9 minutes. Evan George capitalized on a Latrobe defensive turnover at 4:18 of the 1st beating Jason Hendrick to the stick side to make it 2-0. Latrobe’s Matt Mesaros cut the lead to 2-1 and beat Ryan Homanics with a blistering slapshot high to the stick side with 1:09 remaining in the period. On to the 2nd period and Ryan Homanics made a terrific stop on Jeff Joe Regula with 13:01 remaining to keep the Centurians on top. GCC extended their lead to 3-1 at 7:02 as Alfonso Arevalo score from in close. GCC scored a very big insurance goal in this contest as Evan George capitalized on a partial break and buried a backhand high over the short side of Hendrick to make it 4-1. In the third period, Ryan Homanics continued to frustrate the Wildcats as he stopped Michael McCurdy at 13:53 on a sprawling save. Latrobe finally broke through on the power play at 10:45 as Brad Roth scored on a rebound beating Homanics, who could not recover in time and the score now stood at 4-2. Jason Tetkoski’s shot from the point on the power play was tipped by Shane Purvis and snuck past Hendrick to make the count 5-2 with 8:45 remaining in regulation. With 4:52 remaining, Marc Perez used the Latrobe defenseman as a screen and whistled a wrist shot past Hendrick’s stick side to make it 6-2. Final shots were 29-26 in favor of the Centurians.