Shaler Titans

HARMARVILLE - Shaler coach Rich Michalowski decided to sit star goaltender Ed Stotts to send a message to his young team last night against Gateway at Harmarville. Gateway was looking to send another type of message to Shaler and the rest of AAA. You see the Gators have a new formula after their opening night comeback victory against a renewed Baldwin squad......they are gonna dump and chase and go hard to the net all night long and challenge you to stop them. After Gateways Matt Kopaczynski and Shalers Jimmy Duss traded goals in the first period, coach Spike had to feel pretty good about that decision. The Gators Mark Wroblewski banged home a rebound past Drew Wenheimer after 3 cracks to give his team the lead 2-1. If there was a turning point in this game, it came at 4:44 of the second as Eric Taormina had a golden opportunity and a wide open net but hit the inside of the post and it was still 2-1. Those pesky Gators continued to bang away as defenseman Chris Gyke jammed home another rebound of a Luke Pepper shot at 1:53 to mae it 3-1. Gateway broke Shaler's back when Pepper scored on a rebound of a shot from Mike DiLorenzo with just :39 seconds left in the middle frame. In the final period, Joe Bianchi kept the play in at the point and Ryan Whitfield found Justin Scott alone who scored on his own rebound at 12:20 to make it 5-1. Scott and Zach Flora added late goals to give Gateway a convincing 7-1 thrashing of the Titans outshooting them 32-20.