Wake-up call helps Armstrong surge

Tri-State Sports & News Service

There were a couple of different ways Armstrong could have gone after getting blown out by five goals in its season opener against Upper St. Clair.

As it turned out, the way the River Hawks went was straight up.

Since losing to the Panthers, Armstrong (9-1-0-0) is on a classification-best nine-game winning streak and has vaulted into sole possession of first place in the Class 2A North/East Division.

“After that first loss to Upper St. Clair, there were questions, but after that it seems like the team has come together under senior leadership,” first-year Armstrong coach Lee Grafton said. “There’s 11 seniors and it just seems like we’re clicking right now.”

It has been a tumultuous two years for the program, which finished the 2015-16 season at 16-5-1, the best regular-season record in Class 2A. Last season, Armstrong moved up to Class 3A and finished a disappointing 5-15-0 that had the River Hawks missing the playoffs by seven points and dropping back down again. Though Grafton wasn’t the head coach last year, he was with the program and had a good idea of what the team had coming back.

“It has actually been a pretty good experience because I’ve coached eight or nine of these kids in amateur hockey the last couple years,” Grafton said. “They knew what they were expecting, they knew what systems to run and it’s actually been a pretty good transition.”

Coming into the week, Armstrong had a two-point lead on second-place Quaker Valley (8-5-0-0) and three games-in-hand on the Quakers. The River Hawks lead the classification with 5.1 goals-pergame and are racking up an average of 30.2 shots a game.

What has helped the offense has been the scoring touch of senior forward Zachary Kutch, who leads Class 2A with 29 points and is tied for second with 14 goals.

“He’s a spark plug and he goes 100 percent all the time,” Grafton said. “He uses his speed and it’s the same thing at practice. That’s the one thing I preach to the guys is that you play games the way you practice and he’s out there demonstrating his speed at practice in every drill and he brings that over to the games.”

Canon-McMillan

(Records through Monday) Class 3A 1. Peters Township (9-0-0-1) 2. Cathedral Prep (8-3-1-0) 3. Seneca Valley (6-2-1-0) 4. North Allegheny (6-3-1-0) 5. Mt Lebanon (5-5-1-0) Class 2A 1. Armstrong (9-1-0-0) 2. Franklin Regional (7-3-0-1) 3. Hempfield (6-3-0-1) 4. Latrobe (7-4-0-0) 5. Hampton (5-2-1-2) Class 1A 1. Bishop McCort (11-0-0-0) 2. Meadville (11-0-0-0) 3. West Allegheny (10-2-0-0)

4. Thomas Jefferson (9-2-0-0)

5. Indiana (8-2-0-0) one of only two Class 3A teams not to play in the first week back from the holiday break, which gave the team a little bit of extra time to ponder the importance of its next game Monday against Central Catholic.

Heading into the week, the Big Macs (4-7-0-0) were the No. 8 team in the classification and held down the final playoff spot. The Vikings (2-6-1-0), before they played North Allegheny on Tuesday, were just three points behind despite a seven-game winless streak.

Part of the reason for the recent slide has been the team’s penchant for allowing goals. Canon-McMillan has surrendered at least four goals in each of its past five games and its only win in that time was a 5-4 overtime victory against Mt. Lebanon.

Norwin

Over the past few years, Norwin hockey and winning have been anything but synonymous.

This season, though, the Knights could be the surprise of Class 1A.

So far, Norwin (6-6-0-0) is in the middle of the pack in the classification and, if the season ended today, would likely qualify for the playoffs for the first time in five years. Since qualifying for the Class 3A Penguins Cup tournament in 2013, the Knights have played in all three classes and had only six wins in their previous four years.

One of the main reasons for the success is Norwin finding some scoring punch. Sophomore Mason Pivarnik, who was on the roster but did not play a game a year ago, has 13 goals and 21 points to lead the team, while 2016-17 leading scorer, senior Bryce Hegedus, already has more goals (11) and points (21) than he did all of last year.