Butler Toronadoes

NEW KENSINGTON ~ Keith Kearney has done a wonderful job in rebuilding the Fox Chapel program and bringing into first place in the East Division and has three solid lines, which have helped the Foxes to a 13-1-1 record and looking like a contender for the Penguins Cup. The solid goaltending of Senior Todd Hendry makes the Foxes an even more interesting team and FC has beaten some pretty good teams recently like Central Catholic, Butler and Plum. That is all great, but in order to be a contender you must beat one and my opinion for most of the season, which has been validated lately is that Mt Lebanon and Meadville are the favorites entering the playoffs, which is a little over a month away period. So this would be a big test for the Foxes and without getting into a long drawn out discussion about a certain player’s [who is a sophomore in high school’s] dreams, I will just simply state that NO team in Class AAA can win the Pennsylvania State Championship with a rent-a-player and the only one in recent memory who won a State Championship with them is Peters Twp in 2002 and 2003 and that team could have won it with me between the pipes. So trudging along is Jamie Plunkett, the Dean of Coaching of Interscholastic Scholastic Hockey in the State of Pennsylvania, whose Bulldogs will be looking to defend their State Championship from a year ago and has eight Pennsylvania Class AAA State Championships. Plunkett has retired many of opposing coaches into the amateur ranks, who wouldn’t play the Bulldogs because they couldn’t beat them and now these guys portray themselves as procurement specialists of ‘the Dream’. Maybe no one has ever heard of Ryan Smart, who walked right out of Meadville High School and played four years for Cornell University and then was drafted by the New Jersey Devils. He played four years for the Dawgs and picked up a few State Championship rings along the way, so anyone who tells me about the ‘Dream’ has never won a State Championship for their school. Meadville has re-written the book on it, Mt Lebanon is a contender for it and North Allegheny is working on it and Fox Chapel is # 4, until the beat somebody in the top 3. So what should have been a packed house at Harmarville, turned into an intimate gathering at the new Valley Sports Center and Adam Petrovitch had a great opportunity on a Bulldog turnover at 14:03, but was turned aside by Danny O’Sharuk. Fox Chapel’s Jason Kreps would put the Foxes on top on a great individual effort at 12:52 as he walked around the Meadville defense and shoved the puck past O’Sharuk for a 1-0 lead. Coach Kearney did a lot of line juggling in the opening period, but the guy they were trying to stop burned them as Christian Nickerson found the rebound at the 9:00 mark and poked it past Hendry for a tie game. O’Sharuk stopped Justin Kreps from point blank range at 8:37 to keep the game tied. The thing that make Meadville so dangerous that they get scoring from everyone in the lineup and hard working Shawn Harbaugh was the recipient of a great cross crease pass from Tyler ‘the forgotten one’ Learn and Harbaugh buried a shot down on the ice to give the Dawgs a 2-1 lead at 3:24. Fox Chapel had power plays late in the first and three more in the second, but something was missing on the Foxes power play as they managed only 8 shots and let a golden opportunity to seize this one slip away. Meadville on the other hand had some great defensive play and excellent penalty killing namely from Christian Nickerson, David Moyer, Nate Licinski and Phil Siverd to keep the lead at 2-1. On to the third period and the Bulldogs kept Fox Chapel at bay limiting the usually high powered Foxes to just 3 shots while pressuring Fox Chapel with twelve of their own for a shot advantage of 33-22 on the evening. Meadville finally found the knockout punch as David Moyer buried a slapshot on the ice through the 5-hole of Todd Hendry to give the Bulldogs a 3-1 lead with 6:51 remaining. Meadville controlled the play and the clock the rest of the way forcing Fox Chapel into undisciplined penalties and picked up a key 3-1 win over once, now twice beaten Fox Chapel. The dream lives and it took it show up Interstate 79 in preparation for another run !

NEW KENSINGTON ~ The Johnstown hockey program has hit the skids in the late 1990’s and into the 21st century and coach Tom Rizzo’s squad has improved to two victories in Class A, but considering how weak Class A hockey is this season, its hard to measure the improvement. An opportunity is the form of winless Valley presented itself for the Trojans. Valley, on the other hand, had one of its best outings of the year against a ranked team in Richland-Cambria before the Rams finally took control in the 3rd period and defeated the Vikings 6-2. In fact, although winless Valley has put up a pretty good battle with some of the better teams in Class A and maybe this would be the night the Vikings could break their 0-14-0 season and put a victory on the board. The first period was evenly played as the Vikings held a 9-8 shot advantage and took the lead late in the period as Anthony Perriello scored on the power play at 3:42 to give Valley a 1-0 lead. Perriello set up linemate Dave Roberts only twenty seconds late to extend the lead to 2-0. The Vikings were in rarified air at 7:01 of the second as Perriello added his 2nd goal on an assist from Roberts with a shorthanded tally for a 3-0 Viking lead. When Brandon Gazzo scored at 5:14, the Vikings were on their way to victory. Johnstown’s Marcus Botteicher broke Logan Harding’s shutout bid at 10:05 of the 3rd as Valley outshot Johnstown 32-20 on the evening and picked up their first victory of the season 4-1 over the Trojans. Special Thanks to Kevin Keller for this report

1/17/04 ~ Meadville defeats undermanned TJ, win proves costly ! Meadville ~ BULLDOG INVITATIONAL Meadville, the # 3 Class AAA team in Pennsylvania met Thomas Jefferson, the # 1 AA team in Pennsylvania. Meadville was looking to advance into the semi-final round to defend its 2003 Bulldog Invitational title, while the Jaguars were trying to survive without leading scorers Luke Wawrzeniak, Brandon School and Derek Kelly. Although TJ put up a valiant effort through 2 ½ periods, Meadville took control of this one as Phil Siverd registered the hat trick and Evan Wisinski score twice in a 7-1 win for the Bulldogs. The win proved costly as Meadville’s leading scorer Christian Nickerson was ejected from tournament play late in the third period of a 6-1 game. 1/17/04 ~ Meadville peaks a little and soundly defeats LaSalle Meadville ~ BULLDOG INVITATIONAL Meadville, the # 3 Class AAA team in Pennsylvania and 2-0 in the Invitational met LaSalle, the # 4 Class AAA team in Pennsylvania and also 2-0 in the Bulldog. Both teams were looking to advance and claim the # 1 seed in their bracket into the semi-final round of the 2004 Bulldog Invitational. Meadville, playing without Christian Nickerson, played an inspired game as Rick Thomas scored two goals and David Moyer, Anthony Scarpino and Phil Siverd scored singles. L.G Gatson and John Williams scored for the Explorers, who had plenty of chances but were denied by Danny O’Sharuk, who made several key saves in the second and third periods to preserve the victory. 1/18/04 ~ Malvern shows why they are # 1 in Pennsylvania Meadville ~ BULLDOG INVITATIONAL Malvern Prep, the # 1 Class AAA team in Pennsylvania met archrival LaSalle, the # 4 Class AAA team in Pennsylvania in the Bulldog Invitational. The Friars entered the playoff round with impressive wins over Sylvania Northview 8-3, Cleveland St Ignatius 3-2 and a 6-1 drumming of Central Catholic. LaSalle defeated Thomas Jefferson 5-0 and Toledo St Francis before bowing to Meadville 5-2. Malvern flexed their muscles in this one with a 4-0 victory over the Explorers as freshman Bryan Mountain picked up the shutout stopping all 19 shots he faced. The Friar scoring machine for coach John Graves of Justin Martin, Chris Campanale, Tim Gehring and Warren Byrne scored and Malvern, the 2002 Bulldog champion, claimed a spot in the Bulldog Invitational finals waiting for the winner of 2003 champion Meadville and three-time Bulldog champion [1999,2000 & 2001] Cleveland St Ignatius. 1/18/04 ~ St Ignatius has the magic in Bulldog & beats Meadville Meadville ~ BULLDOG INVITATIONAL Meadville, the # 3 Class AAA team in Pennsylvania met Cleveland St Ignatius for the right to face Malvern Prep in the Bulldog Invitational final. Meadville may have been caught looking ahead a little, while the Wildcats were looking forward to a rematch of an outstanding preliminary round 3-2 contest with Malvern Prep. St Ignatius was impressive in this semi-final as Nick Anderson scored twice for the Wildcats with single scores from Jack Ubbing, Kevin Colleran and Chris Schmoldt. The Wildcats Ted Riolo faced only 12 Meadville shots as Anthony Scarpino’s second period tally was the only highlight for the Bulldogs. The Wildcats advanced to their 5th Bulldog Invitational final in 8 years to face Malvern Prep.

HARMARVILLE – Upper St Clair coach Kip Guenther knows his team is a contender for this years Penguins Cup. The Panthers defeated long time nemesis Bethel Park 7-2 and 4-1 and played some very impressive games in a 3-3 tie versus top ranked Mt Lebanon and 3-2 loss at Meadville, so they know they can compete and beat the top level teams. The problem occurs, it seems when USC looks ahead of teams, which frankly makes them a candidate for a first round upset like the 5-4 loss to Butler a week ago. One thing we need to remember is that the Panthers are a young team and only a year removed from a sub .500 season, so this team has made great strides with the strong play of players like Kris McDonough, Ian Joyce, Jeffrey Greenberg and David Crockett. Shaler coach Ron Steedle, has watched his team compete with the top teams too and took Central Catholic deep into the 3rd twice before bowing, and watched closed games with North Allegheny, Butler and Bethel Park, slip away late in the 2nd period and early in the third with some spurts of offense by their opponents, who put the Titans away. With a team, who’s highest returning forward with 4 goals in 2002-2003, Shaler knows it must play tight defensive hockey to compete with the USC’s, Bethel’s, NA’s and Fox Chapel’s of the world in their quest to sneak into the playoffs. The Titans became the aggressor in the opening period as Mat Yost found Josh Bauer streaking to the net, who buried a one-timer past Kevin Gorder for a surprising 1-0 Shaler lead at 13:43. A back and forth first period with close checking ensued as the Titans took a slim advantage at the break as Nick Bennardo stopped several USC chances. On to the second and Shaler went on the power play early on and made it count as Al Gore blasted a slapshot upstairs through a screen in front past Gorder at 9:56 for a 2-0 Titan lead. USC picked up the pace forcing Shaler into some late 2nd period penalties and finally got on the board as Brian Gorder scored on the power play with 2:49 remaining to cut the lead to 2-1. The Panthers came right back as Anthony Sirabella, capped off a great second effort poking a loose puck past Bennardo inside the post to tie the game at 2:18 and we had a new hockey game 2-2 at the intermission. The third period was much like the first with great end to end action and excellent goaltending by USC’s Kevin Gorder and the Titan’s Nick Bennardo. Enter Shaler captain Graham Papciak, who took a super head man feed from Bobby Snyder and streaked down the off wing and loft a wrist shot over the glove side of Gorder to give Shaler a 3-2 lead with 12:33 remaining. The Titans had an excellent chance to go up by two goals, but John Shannon’s shot hit the crossbar with a little over 7 ½ left in regulation. Back came the Upper St Clair Panthers, as they outshot the Titans 10-4 in the 3rd and 25-18 on the evening, but the bounces would go Shaler’s way as Kris McDonough hit the post late and Ian Joyce and several USC players could not find the net and Shaler pulled of one of the biggest upsets of the season with a 3-2 victory at BladeRunners and improved their record to 7-7-1, after starting 1-4-0.

Special Report to Pa Hockey provided by Fox Chapel Hockey ~ After a week of ups and downs with the 7-6 win over huge rivals Pittsburgh Central Catholic and a tie, 3-3, vs Latrobe in a 57-7 shootaround, Keith Kearney's bunch remained confident with a solid win over Allderdice on Monday 10-1. Senior forward Larry Gizzi will not let the Latrobe game out of the Foxes' mind, as he made a sign simply saying, "Latrobe-3 Fox Chapel-3 NEVER take any team lightly." But...a scary image was placed in the back of their minds as they witnessed their upcoming opponents defeat the respectable Upper St. Clair Panthers 5-4 at the Ice Castle before the Allderdice game. Although Butler has not been competitive in past seasons, this year they are a force to be reckoned with. The power duo of Greg Rogerson and Jared White plus the goal scorer Spencer Crouse in the lineup has proved to be a scary combination for many defenses. To go along with that their goaltending form Jared "Bucky" Holt has been stellar, which is why he will be joining Kreps, Quigley, Misour, and Hendry in the All Star game at the end of the month. So this all set the stage for a huge match-up between the Foxes and red hot Tornado in a late game at Belmont. Butler took the ice and came out prepared as they registered the first 2 shots of the game, but shortly afterward Kyle Misour put home a one-timer from Matt Quigley just 2 minutes into the game. The rest of the first period was played in both ends of the ice and the shots were 8-8 at the end of the first. The opening of second period play saw more of Fox Chapel as fellow amatuer teammate Ryan McDonald put another one past Holt to give the Foxes a 2-0 lead, but not for long. An errant pass by FC in the Butler zone was picked up in mid-ice by Spencer Crouse and taken to the house on a breakaway as he burned Hendry on the glove side to make it a one goal game. Fox Chapel senior forward Corey Day then took advantage of a loose puck in front of the Butler cage and slammed it home to put the Foxes up by two once again. The rest of the period was Butler dominated though as they outshot the Foxes 17-11. After the intermission, one would expect the Butler Tornado to come out of the gates flying, but Fox Chapel shut down almost every opportunity they had with excellent defense in both the offensive and defensive zones. Butler had trouble getting the puck out of their zone and into the FC zone because time after time they were shut down by the hard-nosed defense led by veteran defensemen Jason Kreps and Sam Stack. Butler and FC traded powerplay opportunities but nothing came of either attempt, and suddenly, 2 minutes remained. With the goalie pulled and the extra attacker on Butler could taste the goal they desperately needed, ringing the crossbar and barely missing the net, but still could not find a way past Hendry. The buzzer rang and the game went to the much deserving Fox Chapel Foxes who through hard work and defense defeated the Butler Tornado 3-1. Fox Chapel outshot Butler 34-31.