Baldwin Highlanders - 1975 & 1988 AAA

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 !