Chartiers Valley continues its climb to top
Chartiers Valley was one of those teams last season that had the potential to make some noise in the PIHL Class 1A playoffs.
Only the Colts didn’t even qualify for the postseason.
This year, though, Chartiers Valley (6-0-1) has turned things around and the team came into the week in first place in the Southwest Division, three points in front of North Hills and with a gamein-hand on the Indians.
“I think there’s a different level of maturity on the team,” Chartiers Valley coach Paul Bonetti said. “We have 10 seniors and that’s a lot for us. I think that has stabilized the team and we’re getting more contributions from more people up and down the lineup.”
Chartiers Valley finished in last place in the Southwest Division last season despite the fact it was the only team to defeat Penguins Cup finalist Thomas Jefferson. The Colts were 10-7-3, but were only 2-3-1 within the division and were six points behind second-place South Park for the division’s second and final tournament spot.
Only the top two finishers in each division qualified for the Class 1A playoffs last season.
Despite that, Chartiers Valley has shown dramatic improvement over the past few years as evidenced with its 2018-19 season in which it qualified for the playoffs as a 7-10-1 squad. That may not seem like it raises the bar, but considering the Colts were 220-0 in 2015-16 while in Class 2A, the program is definitely headed in the right direction.
To make that happen, though, it usually starts in the net and Chartiers Valley is no exception. Senior Logan Marnik has been stellar as he has posted a 5-0-1 record with a league-leading 1.03 goals-against average and a .964 save percentage among netminders with at least five starts.
“I believe our goaltending is the best in the league, in our classification at least, and that keeps us in every game and gives us an opportunity to win,” Bonetti said. “Logan has been incredible for us for the last three years and, last year, Thomas Jefferson only lost the one game and it was to us and it was almost 100% because of his efforts in that game. He just continues to stymie our opponents.”
It also helps that 10 different players have hit the back of the net for Chartiers Valley this season, but the Colts have really been helped by the continued emergence of junior Greg Kraemer, who was second on the team with 27 points in 20 games a season ago but has seven goals and 17 points in just seven contests this year.
“Greg has been excellent for us. He’s very talented and tries things on the ice that I’ll go ‘No!’ and the next thing I know the puck goes in the net,” Bonetti said. “He kind of has a little bit of that magician in him that makes for an extra dimension rather than those straight-line players up and down the ice.”
Seneca Valley
Seneca Valley was one of the teams that had to deal with a nearly two-month hiatus because of a combination of PIHL scheduling and the three-week high school sports shutdown because of a spike in coronavirus cases.
During that 51-day break, the Raiders could only reflect on their most recent game — an 8-2 loss to Peters Township on Nov. 24 that dropped them to 2-1-0 on the season.
Whatever they did during that hiatus must have worked because Seneca Valley (7-1-0) is now the hottest team in the classification and, after its 2-1 victory against Bethel Park on Monday, the team had moved into a first-place tie with North Allegheny.
It was the Raiders’ fifth game in 11 days since the break. In that time they are 50-0, have scored 24 goals and allowed only nine.
For Seneca Valley, the goaltending tandem of Zander Stark and Sean Holby has been solid as both have goal-against averages of less than 2.50 while splitting time between the pipes. The Raiders also have an extremely balanced offense as four players — Clayton Blucher (4g6a), Andrew Davis (5-5), Shane Kozlina (5-5) and Ryan Russell (7-3) — are tied for the team lead with 10 points.