By GORDON GLANTZ
While the tail end of regular season is still to be played out, the playoff field in the National Division of SHSHL is locked in.
Council Rock South and North Penn will earn byes into the second round while third-place Central Bucks South will tangle with sixth-place Pennsbury. Pennridge and Central Bucks East, the fourth- and fifth-place teams, will cross paths.
As only the hockey mystical powers could script it, the Rams and Patriots will have a little playoff preview Wednesday at Hatfield Blue.
When they met before, back on Dec. 11, the Rams iced the Patriots, 8-0, but C.B. East coach Jeff Mitchell was quick to point out that his team was not quite itself that night.
“As far as the playoffs go, it looks like we are going to be playing Pennridge,” said Mitchell. “We gave them their one tie last year. We played them one time this year, but we were really shorthanded, so we didn’t give them our best. I was also suspended for that game, too.”
Mitchell’s squad, while not considered one of the circuit’s “Big Four,” is likely that one other team the others would rather not see in the postseason.
Heading into Wednesday’s clash, the Patriots will be putting an unbeaten streak of six games on the line.
After a 1-3 start, they are 9-7-1 and are guaranteed a winning record for the regular season.
“I’m very thrilled that we have been able to right the ship after a couple of losses early in the season,” said Mitchell. “We had a rough schedule to start it off.
“I would say that the chemistry of the past maybe two months has really dialed in. A couple of the younger players have really stepped up. For example, I have two freshmen that I’m even able to put up on the second line, maybe even the first line, if I’m in a pinch. That definitely wasn’t the case to start the year.”
Worker Bees
The Patriots have pretty much done it without superstars posting gaudy numbers.
Alex Wilson (14 goals, 6 assists) and Jaden Young (10 goals, 6 assists) pace the attack while David “D.J.” Brown (5 goals, 7 assists) and Patrick O’Brien (3 goals, 3 assists) anchor the defense.
Goalie Cole Breen (4.00 goals against average, .874 save percentage) has been on varsity for four years and the starter for the last two.
“He has been our starter for the last two seasons, starting every game, and he’s lights out,” said Mitchell. “I couldn’t ask anything more of the kid.”
Mitchell added that Breen has given up playing time so that freshman C.J. Young can get some experience in games where the outcome has been decided, which is a sign of his team-first attitude.
“I know that these last few games here are going to be big for Cole,” said Mitchell. “He has played for CB East for almost his entire life, all through middle school. We have always been rich in goaltenders here, but he just has so much leadership and character that helps to drive the team.”
Balanced Attack
With no scorers in the National Division’s Top 30, the overall key has been balance, as nine Patriots have at least four goals and 11 sit with at least seven points.
“We are just getting a lot of production from just about everybody on the team,” said Mitchell, who has no JV team but a full enough roster that he has a few healthy scratches each game and can roll four lines but generally sticks to three.
He added: “I don’t know too many other teams in the SHSHL where you look down the line and you see 10 different players who have five or six or seven or eight or nine points.”
Some of the freshmen who have emerged as the season has progressed are Joseph “Rhett” Walter (5 goals, 4 assists) and Colton Dreyfus (2 goals, 2 assists).
“They haven’t really been big producers, although Rhett has scored some big goals for us, but it is more the fact that they are stepping up their play,” said Mitchell. “I can put them with juniors or seniors and we are not at a loss.”
Others chipping in this year include Charlie Keiser (4 goals, 8 assists), Gavin Widmer (5 goals, 4 assists), Braedon Hahn (5 goals, 2 assists), Ethan Cenci (4 goals, 3 assists), Jack Kochan (4 goals, 2 assists), Cole Kleindienst (6 assists), Benjamin Dempsey (2 goals, 3 assists), Samuel Gottesman (2 goals, 2 assists) and Aiden Collins (1 goal, 2 assists).
“We are spreading the wealth a lot,” said Mitchell. “We don’t have players who are scoring four or five goals a game. I even had freshmen who are right in the middle of the board because I’m putting them up there with the seniors.”
Best Behavior
Another big change from the early until the present has been discipline. It’s hard to win playing shorthanded half the game, and the Patriots have been avoiding that fate.
“We have been staying out of the box for the past, say, four weeks,” said Mitchell. “That has been huge.
“I have one or two players who are notorious for getting at least two or three penalties a game, if not a misconduct here or there, but that has really dialed back over the last few weeks.”
American Dreams
While playoff field is all but set in the National Division, the picture remains murky in the American.
Plymouth Whitemarsh (14-0) – paced by the likes of Danny Guller (17 goals,31 assists), Blake Ambler (18 goals, 12 assists), Cooper Kanze (15 goals, 15 assists) and goalie Julian Lucks (2.46 goals against average, .915 save percentage) -- will skate to an automatic bye as the No. 1 seed.
Hatboro Horsham (8-6) – led by snipers Vincent Graziani (19 goals, 18 assists), Nathan Nemchinov (22 goals, 14 assists) and Victor Wilkins (17 goals, 8 assists) and anchored by defenseman Aiden North (2 goals, 12 assists) -- has nailed a playoff berth as either the second or third seed.
Despite freezing temperatures outside, the heat is on, as there is one playoff spot open for teams – Wissahickon and Springfield.
Both squads are 7-8 but Springfield holds the tiebreaker by virtue of an overtime loss that yields an extra point.
Springfield controls its own destiny, but that would mean a win over PW Wednesday (9, Grundy B).
“Obviously, I want us to take care of ourselves and go from there,” said second-year Springfield coach Don Quinn. “I would much rather control our own destiny and take care of what we need to do on Wednesday and then go from there.”
Topping the Colonials sounds like an insurmountable task but consider that the Spartans have battled PW tough this season, losing all tight games (a pair by two goals and another by one goal).
“We have played most of our opponents this year well and, yeah, we have played them tough,” said Quinn. “I think we can compete with them.”
Springfield is also on fire, currently sporting a five-game winning streak after posting a record 1-5 after six games and going 2-8 after 10.
“And there might be a non-league win in there, too,” added Quinn. “We have really played well as a team.”
While the Spartans are led by the coach’s sons, Owen (11 goals, 21 assists) and Grayson (13 goals, 9 assists), Quinn is kick to point out how everyone has contributed in one way or the other.
For example, there are four Spartans – Gavin McManus (7 goals, 10 assists), Kellen Warman (10 goals, 6 assists), Chris Cahill Jr. (7 goals, 8 assists) and Gabriel Wells (6 goals, 5 assists) -- with between 11 and 17 total points on the season.
“It’s not one person who has taken us to these victories,” said Quinn. “It has really been a team effort – defensively, goaltending, spreading out our scoring. I talked, in the beginning of the year, about five people playing offense and five people playing defense and everyone playing together. That’s been the difference between winning and losing these last couple of weeks.”
And there has been the matter of resiliency.
“They really stayed the course and haven’t given up,” said Quinn. “I think they realized all year that they were close. They just had to stick together and keep working hard.
“Now they just have to keep on doing it. They can’t just be satisfied.”
The program has come a long way in two years, and making the playoffs would put a stamp of approval on the rebuild with Quinn at the helm and club president Chris Cahill Sr. as the guiding force behind the scenes.
“As a coaching staff, we are very proud of what these boys have done,” said Quinn. “They have really stayed the course and they haven’t given up.”
With the playoffs not even assured, any thought of the cherry on top – a Flyers Cup invite – is on the backburner.
“I would love that, but that’s not our priority right now,” said Quinn. “We have looked at this program from not having any wins, to getting a win and to how we want to see what’s in front of us right now.
“We’ll let all that other stuff happen as it happens.”
The Trojans, meanwhile, can nail down a berth, but don’t control their own destiny. They need a win over the Hatters Wednesday (7:20, Hatfield Blue) and a Springfield loss to PW.
A setback, or a Springfield win over PW, and a season that began with so much promise for the Trojans, with five wins in their first six games, will come to an abrupt end.
“We maybe got a little too confident, after we went on a little streak, but we really hope to still make the playoffs this year,” said Wissahickon coach James Rumsey, who said he is still seeing a recent loss to Springfield with 2.2 seconds left “in my nightmares.”
Although the Trojans have struggled down the stretch – dropping five in a row since starting off 7-3 --- Rumsey is confident that his troops will be at their best in survival mode.
“I do,” said Rumsey, whose team is 1-2 against HH this season, with a one-goal win and a one-goal loss. “When it comes down to it, with everybody there, I still think we can beat anybody. We just have to play our positions and stick to the script.”
The Trojans certainly have the horses to get it done in a do-or-die scenario. Ben Raebiger has 18 goals and 8 assists while Logan Honeycutt has 16 tallies and 7 helpers. The defense is led by Logan Dicus (3 goals, 12 assists) and Aiden Brooks (3 goals, 10 assists).
Fletcher Lynch (5.21 goals against, .854 save percentage) is the second-year goaltender.
“I have total confidence in them,” said Rumsey. “I just need everyone there.”
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