Garnet Valley 2 WC East 1

Flyers Cup, Inter County Scholastic Hockey League 2 Minutes

In the Flyers Cup atmosphere, pressure and mistakes are magnified. So it was Tuesday night.

Kaden Longo’s goal off a turnover with 48 seconds left in the second period proved decisive as Garnet Valley prevailed over West Chester East 2-1 in a Class A semifinal at Ice Line.

The top-seeded Jaguars (21-2) will take a 12-game winning streak into Monday’s championship game against West Chester Henderson (at Ice Line, time TBD) where they will attempt to win their second Flyers Cup title; their first came in 1998. Fourth-seeded West Chester East closed its season at 11-10.

The winning goal came off a miscue when the Vikings coughed up the puck to the left of their goaltender Cameron Chandler and Longo was able to coral the puck and tuck it in the net.

“I think being alert out there really helps us,” Longo said. Having our head up. We have a great group of forwards, a great group of defensemen, we have good chemistry out there.

“I think, crashing the net, everything just worked out.”

The Vikings started the scoring when Konrad Finnin beat Garrett Stoops with the first shot of the game 2:10 into the opening period. Longo responded 10:30 into the opening frame during a power play with a shot from just inside the left faceoff circle.

Neither team could find the back of the net after that until Longo’s game winner but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. The Jaguars outshot the Vikings 46-31 but Chandler kept the Jaguars at bay

“We knew it was going to be a strong battle with these guys,” said Garnet Valley coach Stephane Charbonneau. “They all know each other. Everybody knows everybody.

“They started strong but we kept battling and working hard and chipping the puck out. Finish our checks, stay out of the box; that was very important for us.”

There were just six penalties called in the game, West Chester East was assessed four of them and Viking coach Eric Wolf felt that having to kill four penalties cost his team in the late going.

“It wasn’t lack of effort that lost this game,” he said. “We were fighting an uphill battle against one, sometimes two teams, so it’s tough. It’s hard to penalty kill for that long. It takes a lot out of your guys.

Wolf praised his netminder’s work; Chandler finished with 44 saves. A strong case could be made that he was the best player on the ice

“He was going to have to be the best player on the ice for us to win this game,” Wolf said. “We told him that coming into the is tournament. If we were going to be here in the end, he would have to be our best player.”

West Chester East 1 0 0—1

Garnet Valley 1 1 0—2

First-period goals: Konrad Finnin (WCE) from Sean Farrell, 2:10; Kaden Longo (GV) from Nolan Scott and A.J. Tenhuisen, 10:30 (pp)

Second-period goal: Longo (GV) Matt Abbonizio, 16:12

Shots: West Chester East 31, Garnet Valley 46; Saves: Cameron Chandler (WCE) 44, Garrett Stoops (GV) 30

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Published by Rick Woelfel

Rick has worked in print and broadcast journalism for more than 35 years. He's covered golf in one medium or another for more than 30. He is the co-author of the book So You Want to Play Golf with PGA professional Kim Verrecchio and the host of the Women's Golf Report podcast. Most recently, Rick served as an associate editor for The Mulligan Magazine. He also served as an associate editor for Philadelphia Golf Magazine and New Jersey State Golf from 2004-07. Rick covered his first LPGA Tour event in 1986 and continues to cover women's golf for various media outlets. High on his bucket list is having the opportunity to one day play in an LPGA Tour pro am. Rick is also a longtime correspondent for two suburban Philadelphia daily newspapers, the Intelligencer and the Bucks County Courier Times in Doylestown, PA. Over the course of his career he has coverzed a wide variety of sporting events. He is also a veteran play by play and public address announcer, and handles the PA mic for the nationally ranked Delaware Valley University football program. Rick is also a longtime contributor to Referee, a magazine devoted to sports officiating. He called his first baseball game at age 13 and continues to umpire softball and baseball today.

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