North Penn 4 Downingtown East 3

Flyers Cup, Hockey News, Inter County Scholastic Hockey League, Scholastic Hockey News, SHSHL Game Recaps 2 Minutes

It was a contest of championship final caliber. Over the course of 51 minutes at Hatfield Ice Arena Thursday night, North Penn and Downingtown East both proved themselves worthy of playing for a Flyers Cup championship.

But only the Knights will get that opportunity.

Nolan Shingle’s goal with 3:43 left in regulation, his second goal in a span of 88 seconds, got the Knight past the Cougars 4-3 in a Class AA semifinal. The goal was Shingle’s third of the game and put the second-seeded Knights (19-3) into net Wednesday’s final against top-seeded Council Rock South (8:45 at Hatfield Ice). The third-seeded Cougars close their season at 15-7.

In the parlance of pugilism, both team got off the canvas. North Penn took a 2-0 lead into the third period on the strength of a power-play goal from Cole Pluck 11:49 into the first-period, which was followed by Shingle’ first goal of the night 7:48 into the second frame

But the Cougars survived those heavy blows and counterpunched. Ryan Nichols got Downingtown East on the scoreboard 4:19 into the third period and Anderson Frain tied the game with 6:44 left in regulation.

When Nichols scored his second goal of the game with 4:36 left in regulation the Cougars appeared to have the upper hand.

Shingle however did not agree with that line of reasoning. He tied the game 3:43 left on the clock before delivering the game winner that started out as a breakaway. Downingtown East goaltender Lucas Fleuty made the initial save on Sam Norton before Shingle followed up.

“Downingtown East is a great hockey team,” said North Penn coach Kevin Vaitis. “Hats off to them, they’re well coached. We knew, going into the third, up 2-0 that it probably wasn’t going to end 2-0. I didn’t necessarily want to get down 3-2 but I’m proud of the boys. They continued to work, continued to battle.”

Downingtown East coach Mark Bobko praised his team’s resilience.

“Our guy showed a lot of heart,” he said. “Being down 2-0 going into the third, fighting back, and getting a lead.

“What I was telling them in the locker room was in games of this magnitude the margin of error is so tight that if you don’t expend every ounce of energy and focus it can tip the other way just as easily and that’s kind of what we saw here tonight.”

Downingtown East 0 0 3—3

North Penn 1 1 2—4

Unknown's avatar

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.

Published

Leave a comment