CB West earned a hard-fought win over Pennridge. Check out Ben Reese’s recap.
By Ben Reese
HATFIELD -- Jonah Brous got a nice birthday present on Wednesday night.
The Central Bucks West goalie celebrated his 18th birthday along with his fraternal twin sister Alyiah with a 5-2 victory over Pennridge in a Suburban High School Hockey League game at Hatfield Ice.
The win was the 13th of the season against one tie for West. A loss by Central Bucks South in Thursday's game against Souderton would clinch the top seed in the playoff for the Bucks.
"I turned 18 today," Brous said after the game. "I'm running out of games to play so I'm just enjoying it while I can."
This can't be the first birthday spent on the ice, is it?
"(I've spent) so many," he said. "I love playing hockey still. I can't complain at all."
He might have been able to complain about the first period, though. He gave up two goals and West was in a 2-0 hole until Scotty Cappuccio scored with four seconds left in the period to cut the Rams' lead to 2-1.
"We came out today a little slow in the first, but we battled back and got a good performance overall," said Brous, who recorded 21 saves. "I had a couple of shots early on and I was feeling the puck pretty well, and then we had a defensive breakdown on the first one and a mistake on my part on the second one.
"You've just got to forget about it and move on. Don't dwell on goals like that in the past and just do our job to the best of our ability."
Birthday or not, West coach Dave Baun was pleased with Brous' performance.
"He played great," Baun said. "He's such a solid goaltender so you kind of forget about him there.
"He's always so good that you forget how good he is and take him for granted. We try not to do that, but in a game like tonight, you see how solid he was.
"Nothing gets away from him. They score when they get a perfect chance."
Though he was on the losing end, Pennridge coach Ken Doak knew what he was facing in Brous.
"You get behind on a team like that," Doak said, "they don't have the offensive firepower like we have, but their goaltender is second to none. In order to beat a goaltender like that, you've got to keep the gas pedal down."
With the score at 2-1 entering the second period, momentum seemed to shift. The Bucks scored the first goal of the period and took over from there.
Michael Samson got a pass from Joe Anton in the right circle and fired the puck past Ram goalie Luke Stranik at the 5:24 mark to tie the game. That appeared to be the goal that changed the momentum, though Doak didn't quite agree.
"I think the momentum changed when we gave up that goal in the first period with four seconds left," he said. "We gave up a soft goal.
"In the second period, we didn't play our game. We got away from our game plan and we couldn't catch up."
However, Brous was certain about the momentum shift.
"It was a momentum changer," he said of the tying goal. "We got one at the end of the first and we just had to carry that over to the next period.
"We did and then we could really start to pick up the momentum. We capitalized on the chances that we had and put the puck in the net."
Baun said it with certainty. "I think Michael Samson's goal was one of the biggest goals of the year for us."
After Samson scored, the Bucks kept up the heat on Pennridge. They added two more goals, one by Cappuccio and one by Tucker Forte.
In the third, Anton tallied the fifth goal for West. Cappuccio had an assist on that goal to complete a three-point night.
The Slater boys, Luke and Eric, scored the two Pennridge goals, both in the opening period.
CB West 5, Pennridge 2
Pennridge 2 0 0 – 2
CB West 1 3 1 – 5
First period: 1, Luke Slater P (Michael Walker, Josh Finlayson) 9:36; 2, Eric Slater P (Nathan Runk) 14:06; 3, Scotty Cappuccio CBW (Joey Rockovich, Brandon Savona) 15:56.
Second period: 4, Michael Samson CBW (Joe Anton) 5:24; 5, Tucker Forte CBW (Dalton Karl, Savona) 7:32; 6, Cappuccio CBW (Rockovich) 14:50 SH.
Third period: 7, Anton CBW (Cappuccio, Savona) 14:33.
Shots: P 23, CBW 43. Saves: Luke Stranik (P) 38; Jonah Brous (CBW) 21.
ARCHBISHOP WOOD 14, LOWER MORELAND 3
Patrick Sheehan (4 goals, 2 assists) and Brendan Cullura (1 goal, 6 assists) both had six-point nights to lead an explosive Viking attack. Declan Cole (1 goal, 4 assists), Tomas Hill (1 goal, 3 assists) and Evan Capinas (2 goals, 2 assists) also had big games for the Vikings.
The Vikings all but put the game out of reach in an eight-goal first period. RJ Panella (Capinas assist) scored just under three minutes into the period, and Cullura’s first goal (Cole assist) put the Vikings on top 2-0. AJ D’Orazio (Brennan Bostock assist) put the Lions on the board, and it was still a one-goal game (3-2) after Patrick Sheehan (Hill/Ryan Kinney assists) and Coleman Peppelman (Campbell Manin assist) exchanged goals.
The Vikings reeled off five unanswered goals to close out the period. Sheehan accounted for a pair while Hill, Cole and Capinas each added single goals to make it an 8-2 game after one period.
In the second period, the Vikings scored off six straight goals before Peppelman found the net with his second goal of the night.
The Vikings held a lopsided 36-7 advantage in shots. Joseph Danig was credited with four saves in the win while Ryan Hoffman turned away 22 shots for the Lions.
Archbishop Wood 8-6-0 14
Lower Moreland 2-1-0 3
Shots: AW 36, LM 7.
Saves: Joseph Danig (AW) 4, Ryan Hoffman (LM) 22.
First Period
AW: RJ Panella (Evan Capinas)
AW: Brendan Cullura (Declan Cole)
LM: AJ D’Orazio (Brennan Bostock)
AW: Patrick Sheehan (Tomas Hill, Ryan Kinney)
LM: Coleman Peppelman (Campbell Manin)
AW: Patrick Sheehan (Michael Carrelli)
AW: Tomas Hill (Joseph Hil)
AW: Patrick Sheehan (Tomas Hill/Brendan Cullura)
AW: Declan Cole (Evan Capinas/Brendan Cullura)
AW: Evan Capinas (Timothy Cordero/Declan Cole)
Second Period
AW: Joseph Hill (Michael Carrelli/Patrick Sheehan)
AW: RJ Panella (Brendan Cullura/Declan Cole)
AW: Evan Capinas (Brendan Cullura/Declan Cole)
AW: Nicholas Romano (Tomas Hill/ames Casper)
AW: Patrick Sheehan (Brendan Cullura)
AW Timothy Cordero (Patrick Sheehan)
LM: Coleman Peppelman
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