Canon-McMillan a streaky bunch

Big Macs showing improvement

Canon-McMillan has been one of the streakiest teams in PIHL Class 3A this season.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing

“For us, the coaching staff is trying to change the way everything has been done as far as our coaching style, as far as streaks. We just want to be a team that’s hard to play against every time we hit the ice,” Canon-McMillan coach Ryan Lamberger said. “We try to be very aggressive and sometimes when you play that style, you have a tendency to have streaks where the goals are going in or let a guy get past you for a 2-on-1 and things like that.”

Playing a risk-reward type of game has worked out overall for CanonMcMillan (7-4-0), which went into the holiday break on a three-game winning streak and had moved into a tie with Seneca Valley for fourth place in the classification with nine games remaining.

Considering that the Big Macs finished last season 512-1, made the Penguins Cup playoffs only because every team in the classification qualified and, after beating Butler in a play-in game, were shut out by Peters Township in the first round of the tournament, the program has shown vast improvement from one year to the next.

“As our kids learn more and more in each practice and game, we’re getting better,” Lamberger said. “I’m pretty happy with the turnaround so far this year from last year.”

It also helps that CanonMcMillan has a solid group of seniors paving the way, including forward Joshua Hrip, who leads the classification with 16 goals and is tied with North Allegheny’s Tyler Lamark for the overall scoring lead with 27 points.

Montour

It wasn’t completely unexpected Montour had a rough start making the transition from competing in Class 1A last season to moving up and playing Class 2A this year.

After all, the Spartans may have been the reigning Class 1A Penguins Cup champions, but this was a new season with mostly different competition.

So, it wasn’t a shock to see Montour flounder a bit after winning its opener against Armstrong to drop three in a row. But the Spartans have rebounded in a big way and are slowly beginning to look like a team that could compete for a second straight title.

Since that early season skid, Montour (8-4-0) has won seven of its last eight with its only loss coming against undefeated Latrobe. Latrobe’s 6-4 win on Dec. 2 halted Montour’s five-game winning streak, but the Spartans reeled off back-toback wins over Shaler and Franklin Regional to head into the holiday break tied with West Allegheny and Baldwin for first place in the Southwest Division. The Highlanders, though, are undefeated (8-0-0) and have played four fewer games than either the Spartans or Indians, who have identical records.

Montour is also second in the classification in scoring with 61 goals – nine behind Latrobe – and have the leading scorer in Class 2A in Michael Felsing, who has 15 goals and 37 points on the year.