NORTH ALLEGHENY HAS ELUSIVE TITLE IN REACH
North Allegheny spent most of the season jostling for postseason position and preparing to defend its 2019 PIHL Class 3A Penguins Cup title. Task complete.
Or is it?
Ousting seventh-seeded upstart Mt. Lebanon and becoming the first school to repeat as Penguins Cup champion in 20 seasons is a tremendous accomplishment, to be sure. But the Tigers still have one more monkey to knock off their collective back.
In their three previous Pennsylvania Cup final appearances, they have only won one title, in 2007, when they defeated Holy Ghost Prep. And its most recent loss, in 2019, against LaSalle College, still hurts.
Those wounds never truly heal.
“It was 40-some years now that I lost in the state championship [as a player] in overtime,” North Allegheny coach Mike Bagnato said. “I’m hoping Saturday is our big day. For all of us.”
In 2019, with the score tied, 3-3, in the third period and North Allegheny on a power play, Explorers sophomore Sam Lipkin stole the puck in the North Allegheny zone, came out from behind the net and somehow slid it past Tigers netminder Richard Karapandi for the go-ahead short-handed goal at 7:39 in what turned out to be a 6-3 LaSalle victory.
“Part of me feels really great [with the Penguins Cup], but part of me wants that state title,” Bagnato said. “They had three kids that went D-I and we hung with them.”
Speaking of Malvern Prep, that’s the same team North Allegheny is going to face off against in the state finals at 4:30 p.m. Saturday at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex. The two teams have never faced each other in the finals as the Tigers won their first title in 2007, while the Friars have not won the Flyers Cup title since losing to Bethel Park in the 2005 state finals.
Taking the ice against an unfamiliar foe will be a change for many of the players as North Allegheny graduated most of its starters from that 2019 squad that knocked off LaSalle College in the finals.
“It’s weird because you don’t know who their good players are, you don’t know who has a good shot,” North Allegheny goaltender Josh Bailey said. “There are teams that have good shooters and there are teams that have players that shoot the puck. You don’t know who that is or whether you should step out [of the crease] a little bit, save the first shot and not worry about the rebound because nobody’s crashing.”
In two Flyers Cup games, junior forward Matt Harris and sophomore Jimmy Jacobs — who scored the gamewinning goal at 1:39 of overtime in a 4-3 victory against LaSalle College in the finals — have taken care of the bulk of the scoring. Jacobs has four goals and Harris three in their three games.
Goaltender Anthony Perti has played all three games and is 3-0-0 with a 1.73 goalsagainst average and has stopped 86 of the 91 (.945 save percentage) shots he has faced.
North Allegheny, meanwhile, has been effective offensively averaging 4.33 goals per game. Austin Peterman leads the team with four goals and has scored in all three postseason contests, while defenseman Trey Gallo has three along with junior Connor Chi, who has the game-winner each of the past two contests.
Bailey, though, has been stellar between the pipes as the senior netminder has stopped 86 of the 89 shots he has seen (.966 sv. pct.), has a 1.00 GAA and a shutout against Seneca Valley to his credit.
Class 2A
There is little doubt that Baldwin (19-1-0) would not be in the state finals were it not for the outstanding play of junior goaltender Ed Nowicki, who will enter the championship game coming off a 2-0, 33save shutout of Franklin Regional in the Penguins Cup final.
Playing in the state final, though, will be a different animal, especially for a school that hasn’t been in the championship game since it defeated Council Rock to win the state championship in 1988. This time, the Highlanders will take on a Haverford squad that has seen its share of PIHL foes in recent years.
“Obviously that’s going to be a big test for us,” Nowicki said. “We’ve never seen that team, we don’t know anything about that team, but I think most of it is mental and we need to be prepared for it.”
In its last game in the Flyers Cup championship against Downingtown West, Jacon Orazi scored two goals, including the eventual gamewinner at 15:48 of the second period to give the Fords a 4-1 win. Orazi was on a tear through the Flyers Cup tournament as he had seven goals and 13 points in four games. He’s not the only one. Haverford scored 27 goals in the four games (7.75 per game) as Daniel Quartapella popped in five with six helpers and Jagur McClelland had six goals and 11 points.
In contrast, Baldwin has only scored 11 goals as a team in its three Penguins Cup games, with Carson Kress and Keith Reed leading the way with three apiece.
And, while Nowicki has been stingy with a 1.00 GAA and a .968 save percentage, in his three starts, junior Jai Jani has been equal to the task for the Fords with a 1.32 GAA.
“It would just be the icing on top and that’s the goal now,” Nowicki said. “We don’t really know what we’re going up against, so we’re just going to see where it leads to and go from there.”
Class 1A
Indiana has waited since 1992 to win its first Penguins Cup.
After winning the title, coach Jordan Haines was speechless and equated it with winning the Stanley Cup.
Now the question is whether or not the Little Indians (20-0-0) can cap off a perfect season with a win over West Chester East in the state championship game at 11:30 a.m.
Or will they just be happy to be there?
“I don’t know and I don’t have an answer for that,” Indiana forward Tanner Agnello said. “We just have to carry over to the next game.”
Agnello has been the Little Indians top offensive threat as he has five of the team’s goals, including a natural hat trick in a 3-2 Penguins Cup finals win against Chartiers Valley so far in the playoffs. Goaltender Seamus O’Connor has also been solid with a 1.00 GAA and a .940 save percentage in his three starts. But he will be tested early and often by a Vikings offense that put up 19 goals in their three Flyers Cup games.
West Chester East previously played in the state finals in 2013 when it defeated Quaker Valley. Bayard Rustin then followed and won the next six state titles.
No team from the western side of the state has won in this classification since the Quakers knocked off Bayard Rustin in 2012.
Indiana will not only have to overcome PIHL futility, it will also have to pay close attention to West Chester East’s leading scorer, sophomore forward Greg Diamond, who has already notched seven goals and 10 points in the playoffs, including a pair of hat tricks against Penncrest and Sun Valley in the first two rounds of the tournament. He’s not the only one, though, as nine players have goals and 15 have points in the three games.
Indiana has its share of scorers with double-digit goal scorers Zach Eisenhower (19), Danny Williams (17), Ben Nettleton (16) and Ethan Agnello (10), but West Chester East senior goaltender Jake Godhsall has only allowed three goals on 51 shots in three games and has a 1.06 GAA.