Peters Township cruises into the title game
Indians to meet USC in the finals
Tri-State Sports & News Service
Peters Township boys hockey had North Allegheny’s number during the regular season, but over the years, the Tigers had somehow found a way to disappoint the Indians on a regular basis. battle in the 2021 semifinals.
North Allegheny, in fact, had won four of their past six postseason matchups, including their most recenet playoff battle in the 2021 semifinals.
Not this year.
Peters Township (18-3-1) took it to North Allegheny (13-6-3) from the opening faceoff as Austin Malley scored the only goal the team needed at 10:05 of the first period. They then put it away with two goals in a 38-second span at the end of the second period as the top-seeded and defending champion Indians rolled to a 4-0 victory against the fourth-seeded Tigers in the PIHL Class 3A Penguins Cup semifinals at Robert Morris University Island Sports Center.
“Each of those goals came from a different line,” Peters Township coach Rick Tingle said. “That’s what you want.”
Peters Township is back in the finals on Monday at 6:15 p.m. at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in Cranberry
and will have an opportunity to be the first Class 3A team to defend a championship since Bethel Park won the last of its three consecutive titles in 2002.
In a meeting of the two highest scoring offenses in the classification, it was Peters Township that used its attack to keep control of play and not give North Allegheny opportunities. The Indians outshot the Tigers, 4013, in the first two periods and opened a 4-0 lead the second period intermission ice cut.
And it could have been worse.
“We couldn’t get enough in. We fanned on shots when there was open nets,” Tingle said. “It could have been a little easier on us than it was.”
North Allegheny, which scored first in both regularseason losses to Peters Township, never really mounted an attack. Senior goaltender Rylan Murphy was under a constant barrage of Indians shots.
“They got off to a quick start with a bunch of skill and bunch of power,” North Allegheny coach Andrew Siess said. “We really did a good job of eliminating top opportunities.”
Peters Township controlled the play from the start, but its first goal actually came on a North Allegheny scoring chance.
Tigers defenseman Trey Gallo tried to fire a shot from the center point to keep possession in the Indians zone, but Malley blocked the shot out to center ice, picked up the loose puck and took off down the right wing boards. Malley snapped a quick wrist shot that went between the legs of Tigers defenseman Evan Barnhart and through Murphy at 10:05.
That was how it stayed into the second period when North Allegheny came unraveled.
Peters Township made it a two-goal game when forward Luca Maietta snuck a 10-foot wrist-shot past Murphy on the short side at 1:55. Anthony LaBellarte then picked up a Cole Neupaver rebound in the low slot and slammed it home at 13:54 and Troy Jones scored a onetimer from point- blank range 38 seconds later at 14:32 to stake the Indians to an insurmountable 4-0 lead.
Other game
Upper St. Clair forward Colin Ruffner knows how to put the puck in the net. But it was his passing ability that put the Panthers into the Penguins Cup finals.
Ruffner scored four goals, including his classificationleading 30th and 31st of the season. But it was his assist on Zach Hardy’s first of the playoffs at 8:48 of the third period that put seventhseeded Upper St. Clair (12-81) in front to stay as the Panthers pulled out a 6-3 win against No. 6 Pine-Richland (11-9-1).
Ruffner was a one-man wrecking crew as he scored the Panthers’ first three goals, including the one that tied it, 3-3, at 4:33 of the third period. But his setup of Hardy for an open-net onetimer on a mini two-on-one break inside the circles of the Rams zone gave the Panthers their first lead of the game.
Ruffner then added his fourth of the night and fifth of the playoffs just 43 seconds later at 9:31 to all but put it away.