Ben Reese recaps all the action from Central Bucks West’s 8-7 come-from-behind win over North Penn in Thursday’s regular season finale. Check back for recaps all of this week's games.
By Ben Reese
HATFIELD -- It was not the prettiest ice hockey game you have ever seen.
And it certainly set defense back a bit.
But Central Bucks West will take it. The Bucks got three goals in the third period to slip past North Penn 8-7 at Hatfield Ice on Thursday night.
"It wasn't (a good defensive game) but we scored a lot of goals," said West coach Dave Baun. "I like the way we've been playing lately."
That is the key for CB West. The Bucks are peaking at just the right time, heading into the Suburban High School Hockey League playoffs and the Flyers Cup.
"I really like the way we didn't quit," Baun continued. "Down 4-1 and it didn't look good but we kept playing hard. I think we were playing well the whole game."
West captain and defenseman Matt McCarthy had a first-hand look at the game.
"It was a fast-paced game," he said. "They have fast players and they were moving the puck well.
"That game could have gone any way but I thought our team grinded it out and we took it to them at the end. We're rolling right now. We're ready to face Neshaminy (in the playoff opener) and hopefully continue the momentum."
Chris Trefz, who scored the game-winning goal, had the same idea as McCarthy.
"The guys just decided to come together," he said when asked what has turned their season around. "Our seniors did a great job of getting us together.
"We're buying into the coach's systems again. We're looking forward to the playoffs."
Baun is right there on that assessment.
"The last month and a half of the season we've kind of gotten it together," he explained. "We're playing better hockey.
"Most of our line changes were on the fly, not on face-offs, so we're taking advantage of our speed. It's making a difference, You can see it on the ice."
Trefz really made a big difference for the Bucks. He finished with a hat trick and a pair of assists.
But his biggest goal was the third one. It came with14:30 gone in the final period.
"That was awesome," he said. "We were on the power play and I saw an open look.
"The game plan was to just put pucks on net so I just threw it on and it went in. It was a lot of fun."
North Penn very easily could have been the team to score the final goal of the game for the win. The Knights fired 46 shots on West goalie Jeremy Kennard.
"You definitely take the positives from tonight's game," said Knights coach Kevin Vaitis. "We put up seven goals on a very good goalie, a very good defensive team.
"Forty-six shots on net. We're doing a lot of things offensively very well. Even defensively, we did some things well. We've got to tighten up on some things but we'll talk about them come the weekend. We'll be ready to go Monday night."
North Penn got things going early in the first period. Nathan Oh tallied an unassisted goal with only 2:54 gone in the game.
West tied the score on Jake Lang's goal, but the Knights came roaring back with three straight markers from Tyler Greenstein, Tony Tuozzo and Jared Albano. Joey DeYoung's goal at the 13:20 mark for West cut the lead to two goals.
The Bucks came out roaring in the second period, scoring three straight times. Owen Shields hit the net with the first goal of the period with only 12 seconds elapsed.
That was followed by two goals from Trefz. North Penn rallied toward the end of the period with goals from Jake Nelson and Thomas Boyle.
With the score at 6-5 for the Knights entering the third period, you knew it wasn't going to be a quiet final stanza. West tied the score on Kyle Burton's goal but Nelson untied it about 5:30 minutes later.
Then, with 10:21 gone in the period, Daniel Poliak tied the score again at 7-7. That set things up for Trefz with only 1:30 remaining in the game.
"We're playing much better hockey," said Baun. "We surpassed our expectations this year."
And now it’s on to the playoffs, which begin on Monday for the AA teams and Wednesday for the A teams.
CB West 8, North Penn 7
North Penn 4 2 1 – 7
CB West 2 3 3 – 8
First period: 1, Nathan Oh NP (unassisted) 2:54; 2, Jake Lang CBW (Pavel Serhiayenka, Chris Trefz) 7:15; 3, Tyler Greenstein NP (Joshua Kaufhold, Jake Nelson) 8:58; 4, Tony Tuozzo NP (Jared Albano, Ryan Cunningham) 10:13 PP; 5, Albano NP (Oh, Eric Sarbacker) 12:51; 6, Joey DeYoung CBW (Ben Morris) 13:20.
Second period: 7, Owen Shields CBW (DeYoung) 0:112; 8, Trefz CBW (Lang, Serhiayenka) 6:32; 9, Trefz CBW (Kyle Burton, Lang) 7:04; 10, Nelson NP (Albano, Oh) 10:01; 11, Thomas Boyle NP (Albano) 12:42 PP.
Third period: 12, Burton CBW (Evan Hee, Trefz) 4:02; 13, Nelson NP (Greenstein Albano) 9:33; 14, Daniel Poliak CBW (Keith Orlando) 10:21; 15, Trefz CBW (Lang) 14:30 PP.
Shots: NP 46, CBW 29. Saves: Nick Ebbinghaus (NP) 8; Andrew Zanoni (NP) 14; Jeremy Kennard (CBW) 39.
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