Baldwin Highlanders - 1975 & 1988 AAA

MONROEVILLE ~ Gateway was eliminated from an opportunity to capture the Class AAA East Division crown on Monday night as Franklin Regional defeated Butler to capture their first division title since 1996. Dan Serakowski’s teams now had to turn its attention to securing a home ice advantage and possibly moving up in the playoff seedings, as the Gators honored nine seniors, including a special guest appearance by ESPN Radio’s Mark Madden. Plum has had an up and down season, which is testimony to the balance in Class AAA in 2002-2003. Stu Relnick finally has his whole club back in uniform after fighting the injury bug and is one of those darkhorse teams who hope to make some noise in the playoffs. The Mustangs already own a 7-1 victory over Gateway in December and hoped to avoid the top AAA powers in round one. Gateway came out buzzing in the first period and appeared to take the lead as Zach Flora’s slapshot tricked past B.J Schreib, but mysteriously the goal was waved off by a quick whistle. With the Gators pressuring, freshman Johnathon Smith stripped the defense of the puck and raced on a breakaway and beat David Himes on the glove side for a 1-0 Plum lead. In the second period, the Mustangs extended their lead as the third line of Matt Giunta, Dave Dincau and Mike Dunlap set up a picture perfect 3 on 2 with Dunlap taking a Dincau feed on the backside and beat Himes for a 2-0 Plum lead. With 9 seconds remaining in the period, Gateway tried to set up Matt Kopaczynski for a big shot to tie the game, what transpire next was a backbreaker as the puck caromed to Travis Senchur off the faceoff and the Plum forward moved up ice one on one against the big Gateway defensman and beat Kopaczynski, Himes and the clock with :01 remaining and a 3-0 lead. This appeared to be a backbreaker until the Gators were awarded a 5 on 3 power play and began to apply pressure on Plum, which resulted in a Chris Gyke rebound goal to get the home team on the board at 3-1. With a little over six minutes to play and Gateway on another power play, Lucas Pepper took a Zach Flora pass and buried a shot upstairs over a fallen Schreib to cut the lead to 3-2. The Gators pressured, but Schreib was outstanding stoning Gateway the rest of the way and when John Kalichuk socred an empty netter in the final seconds, the Mustangs earned a 4-2 victory before a big crowd at the Golden Mile. MAKE SURE TO CATCHTHIS GAME TELEVISED IN MONROEVILLE ON CABLE ACCESS CHANNEL 13 AS RON STEEDLE AND YOURS TRULY BRING YOU ALL THE ACTION !