BRISTOL— A cohesive defensive effort plus a solid performance in goal formed a winning combination for Central Bucks South Wednesday night. The result was a 2-0 win over Pennridge in a Suburban High School Hockey League National/Continental matchup that brought the SHSHL’s playoff puzzle a step closer to being solved.

Dan Kvecher scored both goals for the Titans (6-4-1 overall, 5-2 in divisional play) who still have hopes of claiming the second seed in the upcoming SHSHL playoffs via a win over Neshaminy Friday night.

Pennridge, which was playing its first league since March 1  due to Covid issues, dropped to 6-4 overall and 4-3 in divisional play.

The Titans were outshot 40-26 but did all they could to support goaltender Mason Moyer, and many of the Rams’ shots came from outside the faceoff dots.

“Obviously, it’s not the amount of shots you want to give up,” said senior defenseman Owen Mendham, “but we have Moyer back there to help us out. We did a good job of tying people up and chipping pucks out into the corners and not giving up high-scoring chances.”

South coach Shaun McGinty praised Moyer’s effort between the pipes. “Giving up 40 shots, I would have hoped we would have had better defense,” he said, “but obviously, the back end of that defense is Moyer. I’ve been saying this game in and game out, he’s the cornerstone of the team. He did his job tonight.”

 The Titans got on the scoreboard when Kvecher beat Ryan Pico from close range off a feed from Aidan Gaffney at the 12:55 mark of the opening period. At the other end of the ice, the Rams fired 11 shots at Moyer but came up empty, a pattern that repeated itself all night.

Moyer made his best save of the game on Richie Shanks with 10:15 left in the game during a Pennridge power play.

Kvecher added an empty-net goal with 21 second left in regulation. 

“It was a very frustrating evening,” said Pennridge coach Jeff Montagna. “I thought that in the third period, we generated a lot more chances.

“I thought in the first period we made it really on (Moyer). A lot of eye-level stuff that he could see.” 

Despite the loss, Montagna took away some positives from the evening. “I thought that was our best game in a long time,” he said. “we played a great defensive game, we had a ton of offensive-zone time. We’ve got to find a way to break though on that and I thought we were a little soft in the offensive end getting around the net.”

 C.B. South 1 0 1—2

Pennridge 0 0 0—0

First-period goal: Dan Kvecher (CBS) from Aidan Gaffney, 12:05

Third-period goal: Kvecher (CBS) unassisted, 15:39 (en)

Shots: C.B.South 26, Pennridge 40; Saves: Mason Moyer (CBS) 40, Ryan Pico (PR) 24