North Penn and Archbishop Wood won opening round games. To reach Rick Woelfel’s story about the CB South/Souderton game, please click on the following link: http://www.phillyburbs.com/sports/high_school/intel/ice-hockey-titans-advance-over-souderton/article_41119dda-cedd-5296-a3b9-92e40e7249e6.html
By Scott Huff
Hatfield Ice – North Penn (11-3-3) exploded for four goals in the third period as the Knights routed Pennsbury (8-7-3) by an 8-2 margin in the first round of Suburban High School Hockey League playoffs. North Penn will play Thursday night against the winner of the Council Rock South–Council Rock North game, while the season is over for Pennsbury.
“The last couple of weeks this has been a very confident hockey team,” said North Penn head coach Kevin Vaitis. “We made some adjustments to the lines the last couple of games, and those adjustments seem to have worked out very well.”
One tweak was to move sophomore Christian Ahn from being the center of the second line to being the center on the first line along with Ryan Merk and Matthew Stella. Ahn came up huge in the playoff opener with a three-goal hat trick – Merk assisted on all three goals – while Stella assisted on two of the Ahn goals.
“That line can really fly,” said Vaitis. “All three of those players really compliment the skills of the other players on the first line.”
Merk and defenseman Caleb Witzaney played a huge role as senior leaders for the younger Knights.
“We spoke to the team before the game and told them that one mistake could cost us a game,” said Witzaney who scored a pair of goals and had an assist for the winners. “We told them to go out and work hard and play hard.”
“There can be some pressure because this is a one game elimination,” said Merk. “We have the Flyers Cup coming up, but we really want to come out of this with a (SHSHL) championship.”
But before North Penn could discuss the possibility of both the Flyers Cup and SHSHL championships, the Knights had to defeat Pennsbury. In the lone meeting during the regular season, the Falcons lost a tight 2-1 affair with Big Blue.
“The first game with them was close, and anything can happen in playoff hockey,” said Vaitis. “I was glad that once we got the two-goal lead we were able to expand on it.”
The score was even at 1-1 after the first period. The Knight goal was the first goal of the night by Ahn, while Pennsbury countered with a goal by Luke Matthews.
North Penn scored the first two goals of the second period – one by Stella and the other by Witzaney – and the Falcons drew to 3-2 on a goal by Andrew Sweetland. The Knights led 4-2 by the close of the period on a goal by Witzaney.
The game was blown apart in the third period as Ahn, Stella, Ahn, and Doug Barber all turned on the red light for the Knights.
“Jake (Wolff) did a real nice job in goal for us,” said Vaitis. “He had to make some big saves when the game was still close, and he has real strong for us in net all season. We have to be ready to move on.”
North Penn took step one with a playoff win over Pennsbury.
North Penn Knights 1 3 4 - 8
Pennsbury Falcons 1 1 0 - 2
First Period:
NP: Christian Ahn (Ryan Merk & Matthew Stella)
P: Luke Matthews (William Richards & Ryan Daley)
Second Period:
NP: Stella (Jeremy Snyder)
NP: Caleb Witzaney (Doug Barber & Stella)
P: Andrew Sweetland (Nigel Honegger & Richards)
NP: Witzaney (Matt Barkley & Barber)
Third Period:
NP: Ahn (Stella & Merk)
NP: Stella (Witzaney & Snyder)
NP: Ahn (Merk & Matt Mette)
NP: Barber (Barkley & Ted Stoler)
Shots On Goal:
North Penn 11 21 17 - 49
Pennsbury 5 4 10 - 19
Saves:
North Penn – Jake Wolff – 17
Pennsbury – Jeff Stitt – 41
Pennridge Season Ends With Painful Playoff Loss
Pennridge (10-5-2) saw its season come to a close as the Rams fought hard in a 6-4 loss to Archbishop Wood (11-6-1) in an opening round Suburban High School Hockey League playoff contest.
“This has been an extremely tough season with all the injuries – all the concussions,” said Pennridge head coach Larry Wheatley. “I am very proud of the way that the team played this season, and to go with about 11 or 12 players the last five games says a lot about the dedication of the players.
“Matt Brown feels that he has had to carry the team, and his attitude sets a great example for the remainder of the team,” added Wheatley of his team-leading scorer who is just a junior. “Shane Lyons and Tyler Shagen have played their hearts out, and Steve Fite is 135 pounds of determination. Derek Wilson, Zach Heitzenrater, and our goaltenders (Dustin Wexler & Eric Mccrorie) have given everything they had. The entire team really gave a great effort.”
But that effort was not enough to defeat Archbishop Wood.
The Vikings had a 13-7 first period lead in shots – and a 1-0 lead on the scoreboard at the first intermission, thanks to a goal by Kevin Letizio (Troy Potts/Bailey Nixon assists).
A goal by Patrick Cavanaugh (Nick Patton/Sean Palmer assists) put Wood on top 2-0 early in the second period, but Pennridge goals by Lyons (assist Brown) and Brown (assist Lyons) knotted the score. Wood, however, would use a power play goal by Matt Mandes (Kyle Gallen/Kevin Neiley assists) as well as a goal by Jonathan Rosica (Potts/Michael Gresko assists) to take a 4-2 lead into the final stanza.
The lead swelled to 5-2 after a power play goal by Kyle Gallen (Shane Lydon/Ryan Meinke assists), but the Rams refused to go quietly. Heitzenrater scored on assists from Brown and Leland Stockman, while Brown scored on a goal with an assist from Chris Murphy to get Pennridge as close as 5-4 with 4:02.84 left in the contest.
Pennridge would eventually pull the goalie – Meinke (Gallen assist) scored into the empty net with 0:24.7 left in the game – and the season would come to a sudden close for Pennridge.
“I thought we could be .500 at the beginning of the season,” said Wheatley. “And to finish with ten wins means that we have had a successful season.”
Pennridge Rams 0 2 2 - 4
Archbishop Wood Vikings 1 3 2 - 5
Shots On Goal:
Pennridge 7 13 6 - 26
Wood 13 16 6 - 35
- Log in to post comments
