COLMAR – What began as a quiet, scoreless playoff battle quickly flipped in the second period when penalties piled up for Owen J. Roberts. With a 5 on 3 power play in front of them, North Penn finally broke through and used the moment to swing the momentum of the Flyers Cup quarterfinal.
#1 North Penn (24-1-0; 16-0-0) welcomed in #8 Owen J. Roberts (12-7-0; 10-7-0) for a quarterfinal matchup in the AA Flyers Cup tournament late Thursday night. Despite the Knights going scoreless in the first it was a second period surge that helped them leave the rink in the win column at the end of the night, with the final score 6-3.
The game started very slow offensively for both teams. No goals, no penalties, and not many shots on goal for a little over the first 10 minutes. As the puck moved up and down the ice the tension grew as both teams fought for the first goal, but the only thing that was shown on the scoreboard in the first was the clock ticking in the penalty box.
The action finally picked up when Wildcats junior Colin Costello was escorted to the box for a tripping/clipping/leg checking minor penalty.
Just under 2 minutes later,Wildcats sophomore Colin Daugherty shared the box with his teammate for a brief 8 seconds.
The Knights with the advantage for what felt like forever just couldn’t put the puck in the net. The only thing they could get going were some penalties of their own.
Junior Chris Silvotti was the one to warm up the box for the Knights tonight when he was caught for a holding minor and punished with 2 minutes away from the play. Similar to the Knights, the Wildcats did not take advantage of the power play and eventually the numbers evened out again.
Nearing the end of the first period both teams continuously grew frustrated with themselves due to the slow offensive start. Knights sophomore Derek Lugara was the one to make that known tonight when he was handed multiple penalties, one boarding misconduct and one boarding minor.
Luagara served the minor as his grademate sophomore Ismael Cabrales, who was playing through a minor hamstring issue, served the misconduct for him. The first period finally came to an end and the scoreboard still read 0-0.
North Penn’s offense has been the story of their success all season, so going scoreless in the first is something they don’t feel very often.
“I think we were doing a lot of good things, getting a lot of offensive chances. The one thing we talked about a little bit was just moving the puck a little bit in the offensive zone and getting the d involved a little bit,” said Knights head coach Kevin Vaitis.
The slow offensive play continued to start the second period as there was no action the first 6 and a half minutes. Similar to the first, Silvotti picked up the first penalty of the period for the Knights, this time for an interference minor.
Despite being down a man on the ice, North Penn finally broke the ice on the scoring side of the puck. As the offense moved up towards the net, the senior assistant captain Nolan Shingle passed it off to junior assistant captain Sam Norton. Norton then quickly flicked it over the middle to senior James Boyle who took it up right on the goalie and snuck it right into the back of the net and put the Knights up 1-0 on the short handed goal.
It felt like that goal was the momentum the Knights had been searching for all night as the offense really started clicking on all cylinders shortly after that.
With about six and a half to go in the second period, Wildcats senior Maximillian Connell was handed two minor penalties at once, a holding and an unsportsmanlike conduct.
4 minutes in the box wasn’t ideal after falling behind, but what was even less ideal was Connell’s teammate senior Quinn Rafter joining him about halfway through his time served.
Knights with the 5 on 3 advantage had the physical and mental advantage and they used it perfectly. Fresh off the Wildcats second consecutive penalty, Norton won the faceoff, flicking it right to Boyle who fired a bullet top shelf and doubled the Knights lead 2-0.
That wouldn’t be the only goal on this advantage for the Knights as just over a minute later the puck movement became too much for the 3 boys in red. Norton swung it to sophomore Ismael Cabrales who would swing it to Shingle who finished the job and added another one on the board for the Knights.
“We had a 4 minute power play to start. We ended up getting another penalty to go 5 on 3. We called timeout, and then scored on that. They got another penalty which set up another 5 on 3, and we scored on that again,” Vaitis explained.
After the goal was scored, the frustration for Wildcats junior Jaxton Majcher would boil over and he made it known. Getting in one opponents face and shoving another resulted in him being given 22 minutes worth of unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, and essentially being ejected from the game.
Once again due to the ejection, 2 Wildcats players were thrown in the box to serve Majcher’s time, this time being Costello and sophomore Tobin Engle.
Just like earlier in the period, the Knights took advantage of the power play and this time Shingle was the one assisting Silvotti with a goal to lift the Knights lead to 4.
After the goal, the clock ran out, where we thought intermission would begin with no problems, but Knights senior Danial Cabrales had other plans. Words were exchanged which resulted in Cabrales throwing punches. The referees had to break it all up, and in the end Cabrales was also ejected from the game.
Coming out of intermission, North Penn wanted to keep the offensive pressure on. They weren’t exactly able to start hot, but it was Knights sophomore goalie Andy Norton who stole the show to start as he threw his body on the line countless times to save multiple goals.
“Andy was awesome back there, and that’s what we needed from him. You know, he’s played well this year, but I know that he had another gear inside him that he could find and I thought he had that tonight,” Vaitis stated.
Although it wasn’t right away, the Knights were the first to score in the final period. After hitting the ice hard before intermission, Knights junior Deaclan Leahy shook it off and played through it. It paid off as he was the next to add to the lead when he scored off the assist from Silvotti and freshman Gavin Lombardi.
It wouldn’t be a Knights ice hockey game without North Penn senior Luke Haftel spending time in the box, and that remained the same tonight. Just under a minute after the goal Haftel took a trip to the box due to a roughing penalty.
It took until the third period, but this time Owen J. Roberts would finally take advantage of the power play. Wildcats freshman Brody Majcher opened the scoring for his team when he snuck one by Norton off the assist from Daugherty.
2 minutes later each team found themselves down a man as they split penalties. It was Boyle for the Knights and junior Jake Kuhn for the Wildcats. Both teams down a man, the Knights offense came back to life when Sam Norton picked up a goal off the assist from Shingle.
Shortly after the goal the teams would split penalties again. Once again for the Wildcats it was Kuhn and for the Knights this time it was senior Gabriel Dunn. The teams then skated on for 5 minutes with no action.
But just as it felt like the game was wrapping up, the Wildcats caught the Knights sleeping. With just under 3 minutes to play senior Richie Pupek scored off the assist from Daugherty. A little over a minute after that freshman Tyler Moyer would score a consecutive goal off the assist from Majcher and freshman Tanner Nau.
“We got some other guys on the ice to get a little bit more time, and we rested some of the guys that were playing a lot of minutes. They ended up probably making it a little closer than we wanted at 6 to 3, but I think for all intensive purposes we had that game under control and I was just proud of the guys all around,” explained Vaitis.
The late offensive push for the Wildcats wouldn’t be enough as the buzzer sounded and the scoreboard read 6-3 in favor of the Knights.
Unlike this week, the Knights will be awarded with some much needed time off. This late in the season bodies start to wear down, so every day of rest matters.
“Some of the guys have some club hockey this weekend, so they’re going to have some more games this weekend. But, we will practice Monday, watch some tape on them [Downingtown West] Monday, but it’ll be good to have a couple days off,” Vaitis stated. “We got a couple guys banged up, we’ll get them healthy and get them ready to play next Thursday.”
North Penn will advance to the Flyers Cup Semifinals next week where they will take on #5 Downingtown West, who is coming off of a 6-2 win over Central Bucks East. The game will take place at Hatfield Ice on Thursday March 12th with the puck dropping at 6:30 PM.
Final Score:
Knights 6
Wildcats 3
Shots on Goal:
Knights 50
Wildcats 41
Saves:
Norton 38
Faith 44
