Baldwin Highlanders - 1975 & 1988 AAA

Semi-Finals 11/23/03 ~ Pine Richland stuns NA in OT ! North Allegheny cruised into the CC Invitational semi-finals with impressive victories over Orchard Park, Central Catholic and Monsignor Bonner and the trademark on Tom Pandolfo’s regime has been the ability to hold the lead in the third period or comeback when down by excellent conditioning, timely goals and aggressive hard work by the Tigers. NA would have to accomplish the same thing against Pine Richland, but would have to do it without top scoring forward Joe Smarto. Pine Richland has seen a re-birth under Jimmy Black, who knows the talent pool at PR has been good for a while and needed some direction to get the program back to the top of Class AA to battle Thomas Jefferson, Kittanning and others for the 2004 Penguin Cup. The Rams defeated a gritty Archbishop Ryan squad and two of Class AAA’s top ranked teams Upper St Clair and Mt Lebanon, Ho …Hum 6-0 over USC and a thrilling 2-1 win over Mt Lebanon and next up would be top ranked NA. PR wasted no time jumping on NA as Adam Fodor opened the scoring for PR taking a feed from Ryan Tessmer and beating Bobby Daly for a 1-0 lead at 14:24. Daly was the story for North Allegheny in the first period stopping Adam Fodor in front at 12:37 and again at 11:03 to keep NA within one. The Tigers had an opportunity to tie the game on a two man advantage, their best chance coming when Paul Dittrich hit the post at 3:50. Dittrich would make the most of another chance late in the 2nd period scoring at 2:31 to tie the game at one apiece going to the third. Pine Richland regained the lead in the third period as Josh Phillips scored on assists from Tessmer and Tom DiDinato just 2:09 in. The Tigers tied it as Dittrich picked up his second goal at 4:57 of regulation. North Allegheny became the aggressor at this point trying to intimidate Pine Richland, but the Rams stood tall and played an even third period with the Tigers. The game went to overtime and Jordan Yoklic buried a great cross ice pass from Ryan Tessmer past Daly at 3:52 of overtime sending the Rams to their first ever Central Catholic Invitational final.