C.B. South 4 Downingtown East 3

By Karen Sangillo

It was fast paced and action packed.

And when it was over, sixth seed Central Bucks South was a 4-3 winner over No. 11 Downingtown East in Tuesday’s opening round of the Flyers Cup Class AA tournament at Hatfield Ice Arena.

The Titans will take on third seed Council Rock South, a 6-3 winner over No. 14 Spring-Ford, in Thursday’s quarterfinals at Hatfield.

CB South got a pair of late goals in the first period. The Titans were on what had been a rather lackluster power play when Nolan Senigo netted the first goal of the evening. Ryan Montagna followed with a second goal less than 30 seconds later to send CB South into the first intermission with a 2-0 lead.

That lead was cut in half early in the second period when Downingtown East’s Chase McKeown scored. Montagna answered with his second goal of the evening to give CB South some breathing room, but the Cougars found the net in the final minutes of the period to again cut the CB South lead to one goal.

Montagna completed a natural hat trick six minutes into the third period. That goal went from an insurance goal to the game winner when Franciscus scored for Downingtown East with less than five minutes to go.

“It was definitely not a given,” said Montagna, a senior left wing. “Every single shift we had to work hard. They definitely could have come back on us.”

The Titans are very familiar with their next foe, CR South.

“I think we’ve had a great couple of games,” Montagna said. “We beat CR South twice, and we had a good game against North Penn for the championship of our league. We didn’t play our best tonight. We need to change our defense a bit and get pucks deep. We were playing around with the puck too much we need to be simple with it.”

Nathan Napolitano was in goal for the Titans and he withstood a late charge by the Cougars as the final seconds ticked down. In the first period, Napolitano came up big with a save on a Downingtown East breakaway.

“Nathan bailed us out,” said Slobodrian, a senior right winger. “It’s been the same story. He’s been bailing us out. we need to fix some things on D.

“We did a good job of drawing penalties, but we need to capitalize on them more. We only scored on one of them. We had a good amount of shots and at times we had quality shots but I think some of those could have been better.

“We need to step up our game and fix things on defense, tweak a few things on offense and also on the power play.

“When we scored those first two goals we let off the gas. I guess we thought the goals were going to be handed to us, then they scored and we realized ‘OK, were actually in a hockey game’ and we knew we had to pick it up. We had some lapses, but we did it.”

Downingtown East 0 2 1—3

CB South 2 1 1—4

First-period goals: Nolan Senigo (CBS) from Joseph Slobodrian and Ryan Frey, 14:24; Ryan Montagna (CBS) from Owen Frey, 14:50; Second period goals: Chase McKeown (DE) unassisted, 2:31; Montagna (CBS) from Slobodrian and John Lord, 6:50; Thomas Wolf (DE) from Colin Franciscus and Leonardo Nino, 15:17; Third period goals: Montagna (CBS) from Slobodrian and Ryan Frey, 5:57; Franciscus (DE) from Wolf, 12:23

Shots: Downingtown East 27, CB South 47; Saves: Lucas Fleuty (DE) 32, Nathan Napolitano (CBS) 20

C.B. South 8 C.B. East 1

In boxing, there are crossroads fights. In hockey, there are crossroads games. Central Buck East and Central Bucks South found themselves at a crossroads Friday night, with each looking to vault themselves into the top tier of the SHSHL National Division standings.

It was the Titans who made the climb, on the strength of seven unanswered goals over the last two periods-plus to post an 8-1 win at the Bucks County Ice Sports Center that boosted their record to 6-1-1 in league play (6-2-1 overall. The result put South within three points of first-place Pennridge and a single point behind second-place Council Rock South, which has a game in hand.

Jeff Kvecher scored twice for the winning side, six other players scored one goal each.

Perhaps the most eye-catching stat of the evening however was the Titans limiting the Patriots (4-3) to just one goal.

South defenseman Aiden Linso touted his team’s defensive effort.

“We play together as a team,” he said, “so really we knew what we had to do.

“The offense comes back, plays [defense] and we work the puck out to our wingers, so we knew they weren’t scoring a lot of goals tonight.”

D.J. Lindenmuth gave South a 1-0 lead 2:56 into the opening period on a shot from the deep right wing. Corey Kosick tied the game at the 14:56 mark when he forced a turnover in the South defensive zone and scored on a solo effort.

The East offense, which been averaging better than four goals a game prior to Friday night, was not heard from thereafter, to the chagrin of Patriot coach Jeff Mitchell.

“I don’t know what was up with my team tonight,” he said. “It’s completely unacceptable in my opinion.”

Leading 2-1 after the first frame, the Titans broke the game open with two goals in the second period and four more in the third.

Linso, who assisted on three goals himself, stressed the importance of he and his teammates maintaining their focus after they built their lead.

“It’s real important,” he said. “Teams can come back just like that. We had to make sure everybody was doing their job. People can’t be getting goal hungry. If we stay together as a team, we’ll keep winning games like that.”

South coach Shaun McGinty noted that his team’s defensive work could have been better.
“I don’t want to take anything away from East,” he said. “They’re a good team, they’ve got some guys that can put the puck in the net but we had some guys that were trying to fly the zone a little earlier than normal and not protecting the house as we call it.

“That stuff’s going to haunt you against a C.R. South, Pennridge, against East when they’re firing.”

Ice chips—The National Division standings may look different at the end of next week. Council Rock South and Pennridge will met on Wednesday before the Rams take on the Titans the following night. Both games will be at Hatfied Ice.

C.B. East 1 0 0—1

C.B. South 2 2 4—8

First-period goals: D.J. Lindenmuth (CBS) from Jake Stepp and Aidan Linso, 2:51; Corey Kosick (CBE) unassisted, 14:56 (sh); Joey Slobodrian (CBS) from Jeff Kvecher, 16:34

Second-period goals: Jake Kunkle (CBS) unassisted, 1:50; Kvecher (CBS) from Sean Cutter 16:27 (pp)

Third-period goals: Ryan Frey (CBS) from Cutter, 2:27 (sh); Colin Mendham (CBS) from Linso and Alex Cannon, 6:21; Stepp (CBS) unassisted at 7:12; Kvecher (CBS) from Linso and Logan Hood, 9:32

Shots: C.B. East 14, C.B. South 31; Saves: Cole Breen (CBE) 23, Dom Varacallo (CBE) 13

APAC Recap for 11-1

St. Joseph’s Prep 3, Calvert Hall 2

Cole Gargon’s goal with 4:04 remaining in the third period gave St. Joseph’s Prep a 4-3 win over Calvert Hall Wednesday evening at the Class of 1923 Rink.

Ben Kersun and Calum Hartnell also scored for the Hawks.

Calvert Hall 1 0 1—2

St. Joseph’s Prep 2 0 1—3

La Salle 3, Central Bucks South 0

Alex Fusaro scored two goals as the host Explorers bested Central Bucks South Wednesday afternoon at Hatfield Ice. Michael Zarycki also scored for La Salle, which won its second straight.

C.B. South 0 0 0—0

La Salle 1 0 2—3

SHSHL Update

Suburban High School Hockey League Standings (with overall records)

Class 2A

National Division W L T Pts

Neshaminy (2-0-0) 2 0 0 4

Council Rock South (2-1-1) 1 1 1 3

Truman (0-0-2) 0 0 1 1

Pennsbury (0-1-1) 0 0 0 0

Abington (0-1-1) 0 0 0 0

William Tennent (0-3-0) 0 0 0 0

Continental Division W L T Pts

North Penn (2-0-1) 1 0 0 2

Central Bucks South (1-2) 1 0 0 2

Central Bucks East (2-0-1) 1 0 0 2

Pennridge (0-1-1) 0 1 0 0

Central Bucks West (1-1) 0 1 0 0

Souderton (0-2) 0 1 0 0

Class A
American Division W L T Pts

Hatboro-Horsham (2-1-0) 2 1 0 4

Plymouth Whitemarsh (2-2-0) 2 2 0 4

Wissahickon (1-0-1) 1` 0 1 4

Lower Moreland) (2-1-1) 1 1 1 3

Upper Dublin (0-2-0) 0 2 0 0

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SHSHL Scoring Leaders Through 11-16

Player GP G A Pts

Coleman Peppelman 4 12 3 15

Tyler Greenstein NP 3 7 4 11

Michael Janora CRN 2 11 1 12

Dean Keller PW 4 3 9 12

Tyler Greenstein NP 3 7 4 11

Colin Franzoni PW 4 6 4 10

Louis Gamburg UD 3 6 4 10

Brian Garry Wiss 2 4 5 9

Jake Weikel PW 4 6 3 9

Nathan Oh NP 3 3 5 8

Robert Seewagen Nesh 2 4 4 8

Aidan Keogh PW 4 6 2 8

Adam Bostock LM 4 3 5 8

Logan Hurwitz CRS 4 5 2 7

Bill Harrelson CRS 4 2 5 7