Central Region

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Mt Lebanon - A matchup between Canevin and Greensburg CC always has playoff implications. Centarians coach Butch Marrietta and Crusaders coach Greg Timmons own six Pennsylvania State Championships between them (3 apiece) and are no strangers to big games. This matchup is a tale of two teams heading in what seems like different directions. While Canevin is licking its wounds with injuries to star players Dane Hetland and Justin Holzer, GCC is starting to rev up the engines for a playoff run. Discipline would be the story early in this game as the shorthanded Crusaders took a couple of ill-advised penalties in the first period. Maunee George scored on the power play at 7:21 taking a point blank feed from Tom Talamo to make it 1-0. Colin Ludwig added to the lead on a beautiful cross crease pass from Matt Ward at 2:16. Canevin dug a deeper hole as Regis McGrath was issued a double minor and a ten minute misconduct. GCC made the Crusaders pay as Pat Bates and Matt Ward scored a little over a minute apart and suddenly the Centarians were up 4-0. Ludwig then picked the pocket of the Canevin defense and fed Ward at the side of the net to make it 5-0. At the other end Jake Genes made several nice stops in trying to earn a shutout, but Rick Nolte finally got Canevin on the board with 1:35 left to make the final 5-1 in favor of GCC. Pat Smith, the Canevin goaltender, was spectacular at times and held his team in the game.

Bethel Park - Bethel Park and Mt Lebanon before a packed house at the Bethel Bladerunners, what could be more exciting than that ! The Blue Devils have been scrapping all season and have been working toward another meeting with Bethel. The Blackhawks on the other hand are trying to erase a little history. BP has only given up 7 goals in 14 contests, and is looking to set a record for least goals against in a regular season, which is 18 held by North Catholic (1981), and duplicated by Bishop McCort and Pine Richland during the mid-1990's. Well enough of that, the game started out with Bethel gaining a 12-5 shot advantage in the scoreless opening period. Mt Lebanon may have had the best opportunity as Jason Schulz was stoned by Delbert Joo. On to the second and the play evened up considerably as Mt Lebanon had several chances as did Bethel. Joo and Colin Sebastian kept the teams off the board until the Blackhawks clutch scorer Lee Volensky broke in alone and beat Sebastian to make it 1-0 at 7:06. Mt Lebanon looked to tie the game and at 6:07 a shot from just inside the blue line trickled toward the empty net and Joo dove on it before it crossed the line. Then the Blue Devils went on the power play at 2:07. Mike Colligan walked around the Bethel defense, but Joo stopped him at 1:07. Less than a minute later, Jason Schulz had a point blank shot, but again Joo came up big, preserving the slim one goal lead. Mt Lebanon was coming on and Colligan blasted a shot with 10:00 to go and Delbert Joo made another great save with the glove. Bethel began to feed off the strong performance by their goalkeeper and started a relentless forecheck. The result was Tim Hramika, who danced around the Lebo D and lofted a shot past the glove side of Sebastian to give Bethel a 2-0 lead. Mt Lebanon would not quit and Colligan found Schulz behind the Bethel blueliners and he moved in and beat the Bethel goalie to cut the lead to 2-1 with 1:07 remaining. The Blue Devils pulled the goalie and Colligan was loose in the BP zone with a great chance and just missed. The Hawks held on the final 55 seconds and pulled out an exciting 2-1 victory.

JOHNSTOWN - Quaker Valley coach Kevin Quinn knows his team has a good young nucleus and added to that nucleus this season was goaltender Nick Signet, who transferred back to QV from Quigley. The Quakers had a big opportunity to claim a big prize in Johnstown against Westmont Hilltop and the Hilltoppers appeared vulnerable after a huge upset at the hands of Blackhawk less than a week ago. In the first period Sam Harriston put Quaker Valley on top at 11:12 and in the second period added to the lead with another goal at 9:12. Back came the Hilltoppers as Brian Willet (7:18) and Sean Dorian (5:15) used a 15-4 second period shot advantage to tie the game. The third period would be anybody's game and while Signet was shutting the door on the Hilltoppers, Quaker Valley was sezing the opportunity at the other end. Jesse Taylor's goal at 11:59 of the third gave QV the lead and Dan Herring added two more goals as Quaker Valley moved right into the Class A West Division lead with a 5-2 win over Westmont Hilltop.

MONROEVILLE - The Gateway Gators and the Franklin Regional Panthers are rivals. The players and coaches know it and their fans know it. With two points seperating each team in the PIHL East division, alot was on the line for the second half of the season. Franklin struck first as Mark Gigliotti jammed a puck on the power play past David Himes to give Frankin a 1-0 lead early in the first. Mike Roth scored again on a partial break on another power play to extend the lead to 2-0. Gateway struck back as Matt Kopaczynski scored to cut the Franklin lead on the Gator power play late in the first. On to the second and this time it was Mark Gigliotti scorching a wrist shot past Himes to regain the two goal advantage for the Panthers. Franklin had a great chance to go ahead 4-1 on the power play, but Roth was stripped of the puck by Steve Daniels, who took the heat out of the kitchen. Gateway has been tied or had the lead going to the third period in three of their last four games and was winless. This time the Gators were behind by two and coach Dennis Shannon must have given a hell of a Knute Rockne speech, because Gateway came out flying in the third. With a little less than three minutes gone, Zach Flora beat Brandon Stallard to make it 3-2. Gateway maintained the pressure but could not score and with goaltender Himes pulled, Flora fed Ken McCleary with just 1:29 remaining and McCleary beat Stallard on the stick side to tie the game. With the momentum in their favor Gateway was on a roll and it was Flora feeding McCleary again right in front who put the Panthers on ice and the Gators now led 4-3 with just :45 seconds left. Zach Flora then scored a 120 footer into an empty cage and capped off a great comeback victory for the Gators. The win put Gateway in a tie with Plum for first place.