Baldwin Highlanders - 1975 & 1988 AAA

2006 Penguins Cup Semi-Finals Serra Catholic 4 Bishop McCort 0 CASTLE SHANNON - Bishop McCort (19-3-1) and Serra Catholic (20-2-1) have done battle so many times over the past six years that it’s becoming habit to see each of these teams at this venue of the Penguins Cup Semi-Finals. In fact, when Pa Hockey releases its picks for the pre-season, its simple to just try to pick the other two teams, who will battle the the Crimson Crushers and the Eagles for the Class A Penguins Cup. One close follower suggested that maybe McCort and Serra should just play 10 times a year and with the state of Class A with just 12 teams competing and less than a half dozen competitive teams in the dying classification, we may see that sooner than you think. During the Regular Season, McCort defeated Serra early in the season 6-2 at Rostraver and then the teams battled to a 0-0 deadlock in mid-February. At handfor the winner of this evening’s contest is a berth in the Penguins Cup finals on March 25th at the Mellon Arena against the winner of rivals Quaker Valley and Sewickley Academy. A bigger dilemma for the winner of this year’s Penguins Cup is a strong Flyers Cup field of 20 teams, including defending Pennsylvania Class A Champions Penncrest and a competitive field including long time Class A power Springfield, Garnet Valley and Hershey, who expect to be in the hunt for Eastern Pennsylvania supremacy. The fact that Serra was the last Western Pa Class A school to win a State title in 2002 defeating Radnor at Rostraver tells experts that Western Pa will have to come up big whether its any of the four combatants remaining. So before a packed house and atmosphere at Ralph and Alf’s Castle of Castle Shannon, the 2006 Penguins Cup semi-finals was under way. At 10:49 of the opening period, McCort would have the first opportunity of the power play but was unable to score. With 8:00 remaining in the opening period, Serra Catholic appeared to score but somehow Brent Troyan reached back and kept a trickling puck out of the net. Moments later at 7:33, the Eagles went on the power play, but it was BM’s Marc Domonkos, who stripped the Serra defense but Nick Koroly stopped him. Back and forth they went and Aaron Nolte had the next chance for the Eagles, but Brent Troyan was equal to the task. With 3:14 remaining, Serra had another great chance after a big scramble but Troyan found the puck first. With 27 seconds remaining in the opening period, Serra’s Aaron Nolte got behind the McCort defense and slipped the puck past the Crusher goaltender to give the Eagles a 1-0 lead. Shots in the opening period were ten apiece as two evenly matched and well balanced teams. Nick Koroly came up big at 13:51 of the second period stopping David Champe’s backhand attempt. Serra got a little overzealous after the whistle giving the Crushers a chance to tie the game on the power play at 11:43. BM’s Steven Polonkey’s booming slapshot hit the corner of the post and the crossbar at 10:27. Marc Domonkos almost tied the score at 5:42, but Nick Koroly just got his arm on the puck the preserve the 1-0 advantage. Bishop McCort took a rare undisciplined penalty behind the play at 4:30, putting the Eagles on the power play and after a nice give and go passing play Steven Gruhalla shot a puck down on the ice to the stick hand side of Brent Troyan to make it 2-0 at 3:16 of the 2nd period, for a power play goal. After some sloppy play by McCort in its own end, Steven Gruhalla found himself wide open in the left faceoff circle and beat Troyan on the glove side with 1:52 remaining as the Eagles seized control of this contest. Although the shots were 10-9 in favor of McCort and 20-19 for the game, the Serra Catholic Eagles held a 3-0 lead heading to the ice cut. On to the third we went and the Crushers would have to make something happen And with 13:51 remaining, David Champe was the recipient of a turnover, but Koroly stopped him. McCort would get an opportunity on the power play at 13:10 as time began to wind on the Crusher season and an opportunity to defend their Penguins Cup and opp # 2 came and went for McCort. At 9:57, Serra took a bad penalty putting Bishop on the power play again with chance # 3 to no avail. McCort showed its frustration and took a penalty putting the Eagles on the power play looking for a knockout punch at 7:49. Marc Domonkos had shorthanded opportunity at 7:03 forcing another Eagle penalty and a 4 on 4 situation. Serra netminder Nick Koroly made two more great stops on Christian Terchanik during the four on four from point blank range as the Serra Goaltender was stealing the show with the 11-1 shot advantage for McCort and only 5 ½ remaining in regulation, bringing back memories for Serra fans of Timmy Johnson, who was the Serra goaltender who lead the Eagles to State titles in 2001 and 2002. The Crushers pulled the goalie for an extra attacker with a little over a minute to go and Steven Gruhalla completed the hat trick with an empty netter with 4 seconds remaining to give Serra a 4-0 victory and their 7th straight trip to the Penguins Cup final and an opportunity to win their 5th Penguins Cup in those 7 years. Nick Koroly stopped al 16 shots in the final period as McCort outshot the Eagles 36-23.