Bethel Park locks up playoff spot, now plays waiting game
Bethel Park has finished the regular season and clinched a spot in the PIHL Class 3A playoffs.
Now the Black Hawks have to sit around and wait for another week to find out who they will play and probably a week after that until they take the ice.
“I think, towards the second half of the season we started to find a little bit more consistency,” Bethel Park coach Mike Schall said. “We might not have gotten all the results we were looking for, but we put some good streaks together, played some close games, played some tight games and I just think we continue to build off of that as this crazy season continues on.”
Bethel Park (7-11-2) finished in eighth place in Class 3A and locked up the final postseason berth ahead of Cathedral Prep and Central Catholic. The Black Hawks know they will get the No. 1 seed in the tournament, but there remains some doubt about which team will win the division.
Coming into the week, Canon-McMillan (15-3-1) was in first place and had a game remaining Monday against Seneca Valley, but Peters Township (15-4-1) had beaten the Big Macs twice in the past month and moved to within one point of first despite a loss earlier this week to the Raiders.
Peters Township also has one game remaining Monday against Upper St. Clair.
In the meantime, all Bethel Park can do is sit back, watch and wait. The Black Hawks were 0- 2- 0 against Canon- McMillan and 1- 1- 0 against Peters Township.
“We’re just happy to be in and see what we can do,” Schall said. “Obviously both are very talented teams, Canon-Mac has had a very good season this year and Peters has come on again, so
being here before and seeing the Bethel-Peters matchup as well as Canon- Mac, there’s nothing easy out there.”
While Bethel Park tries to figure out which team it will play, the coaches are also sifting through the goaltending situation after using
three during the regular season. Zack Ott led the team with a 5-6-0 record with a 2.08 goals-against and a .902 save percentage, but Schall isn’t ready to name a starter just yet.
“I think Ott’s kind of taken the step forward and, when he’s gotten in there, he’s made some timely saves and found some consistency and they started to rally around him,” Schall said. “We’ll see what happens.”
Bethel Park’s fate also hinges on how its top line of Nick Massari, Jadon Tietz and Jake Cook fares against either the Big Macs’ Mario Eafrati or whichever Indians
netminder, likely Tanner Ringwald or Aaron Symons, takes the ice.
“We’ve been going back and forth looking for some consistency and, those guys have gotten together and they’ve done a nice job,” Schall said. “They communicate on the bench, they work at practice and try to set examples for the rest of the guys to thrive off of.”
And the winner is…
Thomas Jefferson turned what was an early rout into a battle for the Class 2A Southwest Division title.
Now all the Jaguars can do is sit back and wait to see where the chips fall.
When Thomas Jefferson closed out its regular-season slate with a win against Hampton Monday, it — temporarily at least — moved the team into first place, one point ahead of Baldwin. But the Highlanders still have their season finale remaining Thursday night against Southeast Division champion Hempfield.
If Baldwin wins, it captures the division title and relegates Thomas Jefferson to the No. 5 seed in the playoffs. A Highlanders loss and the reverse will be true, with the Jaguars with the top seed and Baldwin to face either Montour or Armstrong, the two lowest-seeded teams among the division champions, in the first round of the tournament.
Either way, the two best teams in Class 2A, recordwise at least, won’t be playing for the Penguins Cup title, but will meet in the semifinals. The PIHL has already stipulated it will not reseed after the first round.
A league of their own
It was only four years ago that Plum won the Class 2A Penguins Cup title and, last year, took Hempfield to overtime in the opening round of the tournament.
What a difference a year makes.
Entering the week, the Mustangs were the only team of all the Pennsylvania schools in the PIHL not to have won a game this season. Only Wheeling Park, which lost in overtime to Wheeling Catholic in the season opener before shutting down for the year, is the only other team not to have a victory.
Plum’s only point this season came in an overtime loss to Penn-Trafford on Jan. 25.
To be fair it’s easy to see why. In their March 15 loss to Franklin Regional, the Mustangs only dressed 11 skaters. When you can only roll two lines and two defense pairings with one extra skater in reserve, it’s going to be difficult to win games at that level.