Holy Ghost Prep Remains Committed to its Original Mission

The underlying philosophy at Holy Ghost Preparatory School has always been about the importance of service, to fellow students and the school community, and to the world at large.
Founded in 1897 by Fr. John Tuohill Murphy C.S.Sp,

the institution was originally a combination prep school and junior-college seminary.

In 1959, the school opened its doors to non-seminarians. The seminary was discontinued eight years later and Holy Ghost Prep was created in 1968.

While the structure of the institution has evolved over time, Ryan Abramson, the admissions director and a Holy Ghost Prep graduate himself, emphasizes that its underlying philosophy remains unchanged.

“The school was founded by the Spiritans,” he said, “which is essentially a missionary order. So, most of the people that join the religious order than runs Holy Ghost Prep end up leaving the U.S. and working in missions all over the planet that are in some of the poorest communities that you can go to.

“What we try to do here is try to put students in a situation where they have they have the ability to be successful but then to understand that their success is measured by the ability to help others, as opposed to whatever individual success they might have.
“So, whether it’s community service or the way they reach out and help their classmates, whether it’s how they participate in the community, the idea is that your greatness or your successes are always measured by your ability to lift other people up to that same level.”

The student body at Holy Ghost Prep numbers approximately 450 in grades 9-12. About 60 percent of the students come from Catholic grade schools, the other 40 percent from public schools throughout the area.

“We’re looking for students that are engaged,” Abramson says, “students that are focused. But primarily, students that are going to be interested in participating in an environment where the school becomes their life, where you challenge yourself more than you thought you would, students that willing to work really hard in school, more than maybe they ever have before, with the idea that the focus at the end of the day is to prepare them to have the skills to be successful in college and the skills to be successful after college.”

The school day is structured with those goals in mind.

“We have an enormous amount of free time,” Abramson said. “Our students are given tons and tons of opportunities to be in a situation where they have to make good decisions.

“And so, during a typical school day, a student might not have class for an hour, and hour and 20 minutes where he has to make decisions about how he’s going to use the time, whether it’s preparing for a test, whether its meeting with a teacher for extra help, whether it’s getting ahead because he plays a sport or is involved in an after-school activity and he’s going to miss time at home and so he gets those things done during the school day. But the idea is to learn those time management schools and the responsibility of being able to manage your time on your own, rather than have somebody that always tells you what to do.”

Abramson says that new students develop those skills in part from emulating the upperclassmen. He points out that the size of the student body encourages relationships between students of all grade levels.

“Those relationships that those freshmen have with seniors are not on the surface,” he said. “Those freshmen know those seniors and those seniors know those freshmen. They know their names, they know something about them. They know where they went to grade school, they know where they went to middle school, what sport they play, what activity they’ve been a part of, so that behavior is not being seen in a generic sense, but that behavior is being seen through a personal relationship. And so, that freshman acts a certain way because he sees a senior who he knows doing that. So, he wants to be like that individual as opposed just some kind of thing that you read on a piece of paper, or see in a really generic sense.”

In keeping with the school’s founding mission, students must fulfill a service requirement each year, 10 hours per academic year for underclassmen, 20 hours for upperclassmen.

“Again, it’s the idea of lifting others up,” Abramson said. “And so, we have students that do projects. We have students that go to the Dominican Republic, that will spend three weeks in Tanzania and East Africa. We have students that will do local things. We had a whole group of students that traveled Martin Luther King Day weekend for service projects at the Romero Center in Camden and in Philadelphia at St. John’s Hospice so we have students that do lots of different kinds of service with that idea; that service needs to be hands on for people in need.

There are lots of ways to do service where you’re making things at home and they’re certainly wonderful activities, but what we want is to see our students do hand-on (service) with people that are in need. So, that, again, you can lift people up.”

Students are encouraged to share their accounts of their community service experiences with their peers. “The experience of service for a student is not simply about what he learns,” Abramson said, “but what he is able to be taught by people that can be very different from him.

“We have a lot of students that have done really remarkable things with their community service. And more importantly, they come back and they share those experiences with their classmates, so that they can also benefit from the things that they learned.”

Like the other schools in the Atlantic Prep Athletic Conference, Holy Ghost Prep is committed to maintaining an athletic program that embraces the philosophy of the institution.

Abramson says it’s important to retain coaches that embrace that philosophy. “I think what’s amazing to me about the hiring of coaches is these coaches find you,” he said. “Just as much as you want to find those personalities, there are great, great individuals out there that want that as well.
“Just like a student that wants to come to Holy Ghost there are coaches that want to be in an environment that embraces all of those values as well.”

Click Here For more information about Holy Ghost Preparatory School

Malvern Prep—Helping Boys Become Men

Malvern Preparatory School was founded in 1842 when it was established by the Order of St. Augustine as a preparatory school for boys. It was attached to what was then called the Augustinian College of Villanova, which was founded at the same time and on the same site, the Belle Air Estate in Radnor Township.
Malvern Prep moved to its present location in 1922 where it remains committed to developing its approximately 625 students (in grades 6-12) intellectually and spiritually.

Today, approximately 70 percent of the student body is of the Catholic faith.

Kurt Ruch has been at Malvern Prep for 25 years and the school’s athletic director for 16. He oversees an athletic program that includes 18 varsity sports, and has coached several of them himself during his career including soccer, cross country, basketball, baseball, lacrosse, and water polo.

The school is a member of the InterAc League in sports other than hockey.

Ruch says the school’s philosophy is centered on the teachings of St. Augustine. “We try to teach the whole student,” he said. “And in there, we’re going to being in truth, unity, and love, which are three words we kind of center everything around.

“We’re going to try to have boy become a man. And how we do that is, we tie the parents, the school and the teachers who are part of the school, and the student, into that triangle and try to raise that young boy into a man as we do that.”

The vast majority of the student body resides within 20 miles of the campus. Ruch offered an overview of what the school is looking for from perspective students.

“The first thing is a willingness to want to be in this environment,” he said. “Let’s face it in 2019, single-sex schools, there are only a few of us left You go back 30 years ago, there were a lot more on the Philadelphia landscape. A lot of them have become co-ed, you look at everyone in the (InterAc League) Penn Charter, Chestnut Hill and GA were all single-sex schools at one point and now they are all now co-ed. Haverford School and Malvern are the only two left in our league, and if you look in the area, single-sex schools are kind of a small little niche.

And in that, we’re looking for young men that want to come in and be a part of our history, our tradition. They’re going to want to come in and make themselves a better person. And in that, it’s the academics, it’s sports, it’s the arts.”

Ruch says the school strongly encourages its students to involved themselves in a variety of activities as opposed to specializing.

The one thing I definitely think that makes us different than other schools is we want students to come in here and do multiple things,” he said. “We don’t just look at a student coming in in sixth grade, or eighth grade, or ninth grade, whatever the grade is and say ‘You’re just going to be this, you’re just going to be an athlete.’

“Look at our play last year; one of our top lacrosse players was the lead in the play. You look at our music department; we have football linemen that are in there playing the piano, the violin, and doing things, and if you came to our homecoming, we had a soccer player and football player sing our national anthem as part pf our choir and then they go out and play in those games after they get done singing.

“We’re looking for those kinds of kids that want to do multiple things, that want to try to explore and find themselves in this crazy world that we all live in.”

The school is committed to the concept of community service.

“Each year our students have to meet a certain set of numbers in terms of community service,” Ruch said, “but then, as they go into their senior year they go on a Christian service trip.
“Some of the groups go as far away as Peru, South Africa, over to Europe. New Orleans is probably the closest.

“We’re all about giving back and what we can do for our community and how we can help them. Currently, we have a group of kids 20 kids that are down in Houston, in Corpus Christi, working with people that have lost to floods, rebuilding homes and stuff. We have teachers that took off from their personal lives just to go down there because of our faith and what we believe. This is our way of helping, our way of our kids making that connection back to the communities.”

Ruch derives his greatest satisfaction as an educator when one of his former students returns to the Malvern Prep campus.

“It’s when I see an alum come back,” he said, “a kid that graduated come back and he’s talking about the memories he has and the memories that I was a part of and what this school has done for them and how they’ve developed. Those to me are the moments that you really can’t capture or those moments you wish you could.

“That’s why a family comes to a Malvern or a St. Joseph’s Prep or a LaSalle or a Holy Ghost. For we take that young boy, turn him into a man, and now that man is coming back and saying ‘Here’s my moment, here ‘s what I remember about this place. I want to give back. I want to help.’

That to me right now is what I cherish the most When I hire a coach, I’m looking for an alum.”

CLICK HERE to find out more about Malvern Preparatory School

St. Joseph’s Prep Sustains a Rich Historical Tradition

The following is advertorial content

St. Joseph’s Preparatory School blends a rich historical legacy and tradition with the mission of preparing today’s students for the future. Founded by the Jesuits, St. Joseph’s Prep traces its roots back to 1851. The school is located in the 1700 block of West Girard Avenue in North Philadelphia. Its student body includes just over 900 young men.

Bill Avington, the school’s director of communications, explains that education is at the heart of the Jesuit mission. “There are a number of Jesuit colleges,” he points out, “and we’re part of a network of Jesuit high schools.

“We stress the classics in a lot of ways. We still require all students to take Latin. So, there’s this classical education but it’s also mixed with kind of looking forward and always trying to figure out ‘What do our students need to succeed in college and of course beyond that, in life?’

“While we stress the humanities, the classics and the writing and the public speaking, we’re also working on our STEM issues; we’re adding engineering classes, we’re putting in updated science labs so our students who are looking go into medicine or research are prepared.

“So, I think there’s kind of a nice balance between being rooted in the traditional education that we’ve always been known for and also looking forward to the next thing our students need to succeed.”

The school also has a commitment to community service and spirituality. Avington, a St. Joseph’s Prep graduate himself (one of his sons is a graduate, another is a current student), says the staff and faculty work to implement that commitment on a day-to-day basis.

“Everything we do here at the school is (based on) AMDG; Ad maiorem Dei gloriam,” he says, “which in English is ‘For the greater glory of God. So, everything you do is being done to give glory to God. Because you’ve been given great talents by God you then need to do something with them and do the best you can. Not for yourself, not for your own success only but for the betterment of the world.

So, that influences everything we do. In the classroom, we’re teaching students to be successful in their fields so that they can become leaders in their community who have been trained to do these kinds of things. We definitely stress that. In all the classes, you’re taught that, but also in extracurriculars.

“Every student, by the time they graduate, is required to do 75 hours of community service, spread out over four years. And so, we really kind of make sure we value this. And it’s a requirement because we know it’s important for you to learn how to be of service to others.

“To graduate from St. Joe’s Prep, there are certain things you need to have accomplished. Obviously high-level academics but then equally important is service to our world.

“Father Frederico, who is our director of mission ministry, always says ‘We are called to be the hands and feet of God.’ And so being of service and doing service in the community is a way to do those things. To be God’s hands and feet and to go out there and walk with others, learn what they need in their community. How can we help? What do we get from them, from being in service with them?”

Arguably the most significant event in the school’s history was a fire in January of 1966 that destroyed two thirds of its infrastructure. The school considered relocating in the suburbs but ultimately decided to remain where it was and where it remains today.

“I think that says a lot about what we do and who we are as an institution,” Avington says. “We’re a proud city school. We’ve been neighbors with many of our north Philadelphia neighbors for their whole lives here. So, it’s very important for us to stay and I think that decision in 1966 is vital to who we are today in 2018.”

The school is recognized for its athletic prowess. The hockey team won the Class 3A and Flyers Cup titles as year ago and the football team is a state and national power.

Avington notes it’s essential that the athletic program mesh with the overall philosophy of the school. “Everything you’re doing is for God’s glory,” he says. “So, if God give you the ability to shoot a hockey puck better than other people you need to do it to the best of your ability, or be on the football field or sing and dance on the stage, or being a Latin scholar or a scientist.

“Having a successful athletic program is important because God gives talents to you and you’re supposed to use them to the best of your ability. We definitely aspire to be excellent in all the things we do here, whether it’s our forensics team going to Harvard and competing there, or our broadcasting team doing the best broadcast they can, or being picked by Disney to be one of four schools in the country to do Newsies first. These are things that we’re aspiring to.
“But each of those (groups) are encouraged to do more. So, the football team every summer goes on a service trip to an area where they can really help the community. Our hockey team helps with Special Olympics and brings kids out on the ice.

“It’s infused in everything we do, that service component.”

For more information on St. Joseph’s Prep, CLICK HERE

The Atlantic Prep Athletic Conference in the Flyers Cup

The four members of the Atlantic Prep Athletic Conference have won 25 Flyers Cup titles between them; 23 in Class AAA and two in Class AA

Here is the breakdown (Class AA titles in italic)

LaSalle 10: 1996, ’98, 99, 2008, ’09, 2011-14, 2016

Malvern Prep 10: 1987, 1990, 1992, ’93, ’97; 2001-05,

Holy Ghost Prep: 4: 2003, 2007, ’15, ‘17

St. Joseph’s Prep 1; 2018

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LaSalle 6, Holy Ghost Prep 3

By Rick Woelfel

HATFIELD TOWNSHIP— All season long, LaSalle has shown the ability to score in bunches. That talent was on display Wednesday afternoon against Holy Ghost Prep in the Atlantic Prep Athletic Conference championship game. The Explorers scored four second-period goals in a span of 6 minutes, 7 seconds and went on to a 5-2 win over the Firebirds to claim the first-ever Founders Cup in front of an energized audience at Hatfield Ice.

“I’m feeling really excited right now,” said Brandon Leer, one of LaSalle’s captains. “The past four years I’ve been here, this is my first championship … It feels really good right now.”

The two teams played the first period on even terms.

The Firebirds (8-13) started the scoring at the 3:12 mark when Alex D’Angelo sent a pass down the middle of the ice from deep on the left side of his own zone. E.J. Pohl collected the puck in full stride and went up the middle to beat LaSalle goaltender Aidan McCabe.

Nathan Benner tied the game for the Explorers (20-6) with two seconds left in the opening session from midway between the faceoff circles.

Holy Ghost Prep took a 2-1 lead 5:59 into the second period when he tipped in D’Angelo’s shot from the high slot.

But then the Explorers exploded. Fabrizzio Mazzarelli, Sam Lipkin, Jan Olenginski, and Daniel Sambucco all scored goals during the barrage and LaSalle found itself up 5-2 with 1:23 left in the period.

“I think we started clicking a little bit better,” said LaSalle coach Wally Meuhlbronner. “I don’t know that all the lines were on the same page to start with but once we started clicking, we were going to the net hard.”

That five different players scored the Explorers’ first five goals was a testament to the team’s scoring balance. “I think we’re fortunate,” Muehlbronner said, “and they definitely stepped up tonight. It was good to see.”

D’Angelo scored a power-play goal for the Firebirds with 6:39 left in regulation but Benner answered for the Explorers 61 seconds later.

Holy Ghost Prep coach Gump Whiteside lamented his team’s inability to sustain its early momentum. “I thought we played well the first and third periods,” he said, “and that stretch in the second period our wheels fell off a little bit and they took advantage of our mistakes. Credit to them, Wally and the boys. “But we’ll see them again.”

The Flyers Cup is still ahead but the APAC officially completed its inaugural season on Wednesday. Leer noted the caliber of play was first rate all year season long. “Every team out here (including Malvern Prep and St. Joseph’s Prep was outstanding,” he said. “There was not one game where we felt as if we completely dominate the opponent. Each game we had was very close and then either we outworked the opponent and made the gap grow bigger or they backed down, which made our job a lot easier.”

Notes: LaSalle had a 34-26 edge in shots. All four APAC teams will compete in the Class AAA Flyers Cup. LaSalle is the top seed and had a first-round bye. Malvern Prep is seeded second, Holy Ghost Prep fifth, and St. Joseph’s Prep sixth.

Holy Ghost Prep 1 1 1—3

LaSalle 1 4 1—6

First-period goals: EJ. Pohl (HGP) from Alex D’Angelo, 3:12; Nathan Benner (L) from Michael Casey and Sam Lipkin, 15:58.

Second-period goals: Evan Mudrick (HGP) from D’Angelo, 5:59; Fabrizzio Mazzarelli (L) from Jan Olenginski and Lipkin, 8:30 (pp); Lipkin (L) from Casey and Zach Baker, 9:10 (sh); Olenginski (L) unassisted, 11:06; Daniel Sambuco (L) unassisted, 14:37.

Third-period goals: Alex D’Angelo (HGP) from Eric Mark and Midrick, 9:21 (pp); Benner L) from Colin Kreisler and Ryan Ferry, 10:22.

Shots: Holy Ghost Prep 26, LaSalle 34; Saves: Sean Joyce (HGP) 28, Aidan McCabe (L) 23

APAC Update 2-20-18

Final Regular Season Standings

W L OTW OTL Pts

LaSalle (18-6) 8 0 1 0 26

Malvern Prep (12-4) 5 3 1 0 17

Holy Ghost Prep (7-12) 1 5 0 3 6

St. Joseph’s Prep (6-16) 1 7 1 0 5

The Founders Cup playoff semifinals are scheduled for Monday, February 25 with top-seeded LaSalle hosting St. Joseph’s Prep ( 4 p.m. at Hatfield Ice) and second-seeded Malvern Prep hosting Holy Ghost Prep at 4:40 at Ice Line.

The Founders Cup championship game will be played on Wednesday, February 27 and will be hosted by the highest seeded finalist.

Scoring Leaders Goals Assists Points

Sam Lipkin La 11 19 30

Daniel Sambuco La 14 15 29

Michael Casey La 9 16 25

Byron Hartley HGP 14 16 20

Nick Martino MP 9 8 17

Alex D’Angelo HGP 4 11 15

Andrew Serafin HGP 7 7 14

Jan Olenginski Ls 4 10 14

Colin Costello HGP 8 4 12

Vincent Borgessi SJP 5 5 10

Daniel Behr HGP 2 7 9

Evan Mudrick HGP 6 3 9

Kyle Washkalavitch MP 4 5 9

Fabrizio Mazzarelli 4 5 9

Malvern Prep Wins APAC Finale

Malvern Prep defeated St. Joseph’s Prep 3-2 on Tuesday in an Atlantic Prep Athletic Conference game at Ice Line.

The Friars closed the regular season at 12-4 and 5-3-1-0 in conference play. The Hawks concluded the season at 6-16 overall and 1-7-1-0 in the APAC.

Here are the final regular season standings

Won Lost OTW OTL Pts

LaSalle (18-6) 8 0 1 0 26

Malvern Prep (12-4) 5 3 1 0 17

Holy Ghost Prep (7-12) 1 5 0 3 6

St. Joseph’s Prep (6-16) 1 7 1 0 5

The APAC semifinals are scheduled for Monday with top-seeded LaSalle hosting St. Joseph’s Prep and second-seeded Malvern Prep hosting Holy Ghost Prep.

The championship game is scheduled for next Wednesday, February 27.

Holy Ghost Prep Remains Committed to its Original Mission

The following is advertorial content

The underlying philosophy at Holy Ghost Preparatory School has always been about the importance of service, to fellow students and the school community, and to the world at large.

Founded in 1897 by Fr. John Tuohill Murphy C.S.Sp, the institution was originally a combination prep school and junior-college seminary. In 1959, the school opened its doors to non-seminarians. The seminary was discontinued eight years later and Holy Ghost Prep was created in 1968.

“The school was founded by the Spiritans,” he said, “which is essentially a missionary order. So, most of the people that join the religious order that runs Holy Ghost Prep end up leaving the U.S. and working in missions all over the planet that are in some of the poorest communities that you can go to.

“What we try to do here is try to put students in a situation where they have they have the ability to be successful but then to understand that their success is measured by the ability to help others, as opposed to whatever individual success they might have. So, whether it’s community service or the way they reach out and help their classmates, whether it’s how they participate in the community, the idea is that your greatness or your successes are always measured by your ability to lift other people up to that same level.”

The student body at Holy Ghost Prep numbers approximately 450 boys in grades 9-12. About 60 percent of the students come from Catholic grade schools, the other 40 percent from public schools throughout the area.

“We’re looking for students that are engaged,” Abramson said, “students that are focused. But primarily, students that are going to be interested in participating in an environment where the school becomes their life, where you challenge yourself more than you thought you would. Students that willing to work really hard in school, more than maybe they ever have before, with the idea that the focus at the end of the day is to prepare them to have the skills to be successful in college and the skills to be successful after college.”

The school day is structured with those goals in mind.

“We have an enormous amount of free time,” Abramson said. “Our students are given tons and tons of opportunities to be in a situation where they have to make good decisions.

“And so, during a typical school day, a student might not have class for an hour, an hour and 20 minutes where he has to make decisions about how he’s going to use the time, whether it’s preparing for a test, whether its meeting with a teacher for extra help, whether it’s getting ahead because he plays a sport or is involved an after-school activity and he’s going to miss time at home and so he get those things done during the school day. But the idea is to learn those time management schools and the responsibility of being able to manage your time on your own, rather than have somebody that always tells you what to do.”

“Those relationships that those freshmen have with seniors are not on the surface,” he said. “Those freshmen know those seniors and those seniors know those freshmen. They know their names, they know something about them. They know where they went to grade school, they know where they went to middle school, what sport they play, what activity they’ve been a part of so that behavior is not being seen in a generic sense, but that behavior is being seen through a personal relationship. And so, that that freshman acts a certain way because he sees a senior who he knows doing that. So, he wants to be like that individual as opposed just some kind of thing that you read on a piece of paper, or see in a really generic sense.”

In keeping with the school’s founding mission, students must fulfill a service requirement each year, 10 hours per academic year for underclassmen, 20 hours for upperclassmen.

“Again, it’s the idea of lifting others up,” Abramson said. “And so, we have students that do projects. We have students that go to the Dominican Republic, that will spend three weeks in Tanzania and East Africa. We have students that will do local things. We had a whole group of students that traveled Martin Luther King Day weekend for service projects at the Romero Center in Camden and in Philadelphia at St. John’s Hospice. So we have students that do lots of different kinds of service with that idea; that service needs to be hands on for people in need.

“There are lots of ways to do service where you’re making things at home and they’re certainly wonderful activities, but what we want is to see our students do hand-on (service) with people that are in need. So, that, again, you can lift people up.”

Like the other schools in the Atlantic Prep Athletic Conference, Holy Ghost Prep is committed to maintaining an athletic program that embraces the philosophy of the institution.

Abramson says it’s important to retain coaches that embrace that philosophy as well. “I think what’s amazing to me about the hiring of coaches is these coaches find you,” he said. “Just as much as you want to find those personalities, there are great, great individuals out there that want that as well. Just like a student that wants to come to Holy Ghost there are coaches that want to be in an environment that embraces all of those values as well.”

Click Here For more information about Holy Ghost Preparatory School

Malvern Prep-St. Joseph’s Prep PPd

Tuesday’s scheduled Atlantic Prep Athletic Conference matchup between Malvern Prep and St. Joseph’s Prep was postponed.

A makeup date has not yet been determined.

LaSalle 6, Holy Ghost Prep 3

By Rick Woelfel

BRISTOL— On the surface, there wasn’t a lot at stake when LaSalle and Holy Ghost Prep took the ice at Grundy Arena Monday afternoon. The Explorers had already clinched the Atlantic Prep Athletic Conference’s regular-season title.

But no meeting on the ice between the two longtime rivals can ever be classified as routine. The intensity level was as high as ever over the course of LaSalle’s 6-3 win.

“It’s a great rivalry game,” said LaSalle coach Wally Meuhlbronner. “It has been for years.”

Special teams played a significant role in this occasion, particularly in the early going. Referee Laura White tolerated no nonsense and called six penalties in the first period. Three of them led to power-play goals.

Colin Costello got things started when he scored for the Firebirds (7-12, 1-8 in the APAC with three losses in overtime or a shootout) off a left-wing faceoff. Michael Casey tied the game for LaSalle (18-6, 9-0 with one win in overtime) at 10:05 but Richard Spore put Holy Ghost Prep back in front at 11:46 when he beat Explorer netminder Aidan McCabe off a nifty feed from Alex D’Angelo.

Fabrizzio Mazzarelli tied the game for a second time when he scored for LaSalle on yet another power-play situation 3:01 into the second period.

Some three minutes later McCabe denied the Firebirds’ Byron Hartley on a two-on-none breakaway and momentum began to shift in LaSalle’s direction, David Brunner scored on a breakaway of his own off a turnover at 11:54 to give his team the lead.

The Firebirds battled through a stretch that found then playing two men short for 89 seconds and it was still a one-goal game after 32 minutes.

But Casey (on a power play) and Bryan Evans scored to make it a 5-2 game 3:57 into the third period to put the Explorers firmly in command. The Firebirds’ Evan Mudrick and LaSalle’s Daniel Sambuco traded goals to complete the scoring.

The temperature of the game cooled off a bit after the frenzied start; there were six penalties called over the last two periods.

“We were a little frustrated in the beginning,” said LaSalle captain Zach Baker, a senior defenseman. “Coach had to calm us down. Everyone was contained in the locker room in between (after the second period). In the first we were a little rattled, off our game, but ever since the end of the first we kind of stuck to our normal game plan and got things going.”

If you’re counting, five of the nine goals in the game came on power plays, including three of LaSalle’s six.

“I thought we did some good things early on,” said Holy Ghost Prep coach Gump Whiteside, “but you’ve just got to be disciplined and stay out of the box. We told them what was going to happen but unfortunately, we just couldn’t get it done today.”

LaSalle (18-8, 9-0, 1 in OT)

HGP 7-12, 1-8, 3 losses in OT)

LaSalle 1 2 3—6

Holy Ghost Prep 2 0 1—3

First-period goals: Colin Costello (HGP) from Alex D’Angelo and Andrew Serafin, 7:38 (pp); Michael Casey (L) from Daniel Sambuco and Sam Lipkin, 10:05 (pp); Richard Spohr (HGP) from D’Angelo, 11:46 (pp).

Second-period goals: Fabrizzio Mazzarelli (L) from Lipkin and Jan Olenginski, 11:54; David Brunner (L) unassisted, 11:54.

Third-period goals: Casey (L) from Lipkin, 2:10 (pp); Bryan Evans (L) from Sean Keaveny, 3:57; Evan Mudrick (HGP) unassisted, 6:47; Daniel Sambuco (L) from Lipkin, 11:49.

Shots: LaSalle 28, Holy Ghost Prep 27; Saves: Aidan McCabe (L) 24, Sean Joyce (HGP) 22