Baldwin Highlanders - 1975 & 1988 AAA

HARMARVILLE – While a lot of things change in Interscholastic Hockey, some things remain the same over the years. Back CC Head Coach Kevin Zielmanski’s first year in 1998, Central Catholic and Plum met in the WPIHL Class AAA Championship best of 3 series before the best high school hockey crowd ever to witness a game I can remember [with the 1996 Bethel Park-Meadville game at Bethel BladeRunners a close second]. Plum won the championship on a storybook goal by R.J. Umberger in the overtime of the mini-game after three consecutive 2-2 ties between the teams. For former Plum Mustang Sean Keller, now and assistant to Stu Rulnick, the CC-Plum rivalry and that series in particular are pretty memorable. For the current Mustangs and Vikings players and fans, fresh in their minds is last year’s 3-2 CC victory in the games final minute, which sent the Vikings on a great 2nd half run to the Penguins Cup semi-finals and sent Plum into a 2nd half of the season tailspin. So Plum and Central Catholic…a fitting way to start the 2004 –2005 season at the BladeRunners Harmarville USA rink before a very nice crowd for both teams of well over 600. The first period of this contest was pretty close checking and the Vikings would hold a slim shot advantage at 8-6, with their best chance coming as Andy Hanno set up Glenn Sherwin with a nice pass, but the Mustangs Brandon King was equal to the task to make the save. Plum went on the power play at 2:46, which was quickly erased by a call against Plum at 2:23 and the opening period remained scoreless. On to the second and Plum cashed in on an odd man break as Jonathon Smith set up David Dincau with a give and go and the speedy Plum forward scored on a tap-in past Brian Adamczak for a 1-0 lead at 11:26. The Mustangs went on the power play at 8:57 and this time it would be defenseman Phil Mains, who took a Mike Renna pass, drove to the net and scored on his own rebound to make it 2-0 at 7:27 and gave the Mustang fans a little ‘frisk me in you can’ celebration on the far boards. The Vikings would strike back and cut the lead to 2-1 as C.J. Stellabotte scored on the backhand from just in front of Brandon King at 2:43 of the 2nd. Plum’s Jonathon Smith beat the CC defense at 13:55 and buried a wrist shot up under the crossbar past Adamczak to give the Mustangs a big insurance goal. Speedy Matt Giunta added another Plum tally at 9:11 and Brandon King shut the door the rest of the way, stopping the only shot of the third period for Central Catholic at 4:47 on a nice leg save of a shot from Doug Dietrich and the Mustangs opened up with an impressive 4-1 victory on the road.