File photo courtesy of Tracy Valko. Visit the photo gallery for more photos: https://solsports.zenfolio.com/f833388304
By Ben Reese
HATFIELD — Sam Norton proved how important he is to the North Penn ice hockey team.
His three goals, including what proved to be the game-winner, lifted the Knights to a 5-3 win over Council Rock South at Hatfield Ice on Wednesday night. It is the first league defeat for the Golden Hawks this season.
North Penn – with a game in hand over the Golden Hawks - leaps over Rock South in the National Division standings. The Knights have 56 points to 53 for the Hawks.
Norton’s first goal tied the game near the end of the first period. His second gave the Knights a one-goal lead in the second period and his third, with only 6.7 seconds left in the second stanza, gave his team a 4-3 lead, a lead it never lost.
“Sam’s huge,” North Penn coach Kevin Vaitis said. “The big thing is, in games like this, he gets up for these games and plays bigger and better.
“He’s one of the most talented players in the league. I thought he had a great game tonight, not only offensively but defensively with some of the plays that he had.
“He played up against (Jordan) Sarne, (Jeremy) Rayher and (Jake) Weiner. That was huge. Sam’s a huge part of our team.”
The three Rock South players that Vaitis mentioned are the three top scorers on the Golden Hawks. Sarne had two of the Hawks’ three goals in the game.
But Sam isn’t concerned about his own accomplishments.
“I think I’m a big contributor,” he said, “but I don’t want to take away from the fact that my team can contribute also and do great things.
“We knew that we weren’t going to have one line that was going to score eight goals. We knew that we were going to need effort from everybody to get victories like that.”
In addition to his hat trick, Norton, as stated by his coach, had a hand in the defensive effort against Rock South. He was a key part of the defense that killed off a four-minute penalty in the third period without allowing any goals.
How important was that penalty kill?
“That was huge,” said Vaitis. “The big thing for us was trying to keep the shots to the outside.
“Your best penalty killer at times is your goalie. (Aidan) Quigley was lights out in the third period.
“He did a lot of good things for us. He made the saves he needed to make.”
Norton was on the ice for a portion of the four minutes.
“I was out there a few times,” he said, “killed off a minute, minute-30 or so. It comes down to the other guys that went out there, were blocking shots or icing the puck and killing the penalty also.”
As noted, the loss is the first for Council Rock South. The Golden Hawks had won 14 straight games coming into Wednesday night.
“When you lose a game like that, it kind of humbles you into thinking ‘Maybe we’re not that good,’” said Rock South coach Joe Houk. “We’re a good team.
“We’re a solid team. But we need everybody to work together as a team. They have to come back, and they have to want to work together.
“They (North Penn) had their plan. They played well. We struggled a little bit.
“We weren’t much support for Evan (Ayala, a freshman goalie). I think he had a few butterflies out there.
“As I told them, ‘We didn’t bring our ‘A’ game but you almost pulled off a win not playing our A game.’”
Declan Leahy got the scoring going in the first period for North Penn. With only 21 seconds elapsed from the opening face-off, he beat Ayala with assists from Cole Pluck and Norton.
The assist for Pluck, who has just recovered from mononucleosis, was his 100th point as a member of the Knights.
But the Golden Hawks came right back at the 8:37 mark to even the score when Jonah Weston beat Quigley. They added a second marker 24 seconds later as Sarne gave them a 2-1 lead, the only lead Rock South would hold in the game.
Norton got that one back at 14:22. He stole the puck and went in alone on Ayala to notch a short-handed goal to tie the game at 2-2.
Norton wasn’t finished, however. He netted the first goal of the second period off assists from Leahy and Pluck, his 101st point.
Sarne scored his second of the game on the power play-play at 14:41. Then Norton collected the game-winner at 16:53 on the power-play.
There was only one goal in the third period. It was scored by North Penn’s Pluck (his 102nd point) on the power-play to put the game away.
But it wasn’t an easy period for the Knights. The Golden Hawks fired 20 shots on Quigley, who stood on his head to keep his team in the lead and finished with 38 saves in a standout effort between the pipes.
North Penn 5, Council Rock South 3
CR South 2 1 0 — 3
North Penn 2 2 1 — 5
First period: 1, Declan Leahy NP (Cole Pluck, Sam Norton) 0:21; 2, Jonah Weston CRS (Jake Weiner) 8:37; 3, Jordan Sarne CRS (Jake Maurer, Weiner) 9:01; 4, Norton NP (unassisted) 14:22 SH.
Second period: 5, Norton NP (Leahy, Pluck) 8:43; 6, Sarne CRS (Weiner) 14:41 PP; 7, Norton NP (Danial Cabrales, James Boyle) 16:53 PP.
Third period: 8, Pluck NP (Leahy) 13:29 PP.
Shots: CRS 41, NP 34. Saves: Evan Ayala (CRS) 29, Aidan Quigley (NP) 38.
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