Penn-Trafford rides four-goal flurry to win

Warriors will meet Thomas Jefferson for Class 2A championship Monday

Penn-Trafford was beginning to get frustrated midway through its game against Norwin Tuesday night.

Every trip up the ice it seemed like the Warriors had a golden scoring opportunity, but in each instance the puck would bounce the Knights’ way in their defensive zone as they stubbornly clung to a one-goal lead.

“We were generating chances, we had zone time and we were getting shots,” Penn-Trafford coach Chris Cerutti said. “You could tell they were tired the second half of that second period and I pulled our offensive guys and said, this is the time right now. They’re dead tired.”

In that moment, something clicked and Penn-Trafford turned a deficit into a veritable rout.

Penn- Trafford ( 9- 9- 4) erased that one-goal second period deficit with four goals in a span of 2:56 as the eighth- seeded Warriors earned their first trip to the Penguins Cup finals with a 6-3 come-from-behind victory against No. 4 Norwin (12-8-2) in the Class 2A semifinals at Robert Morris University’s Clearview Arena.

Penn-Trafford etched itself in Penguins Cup lore when it became the first No. 8 seed to knock off a No. 1 in any classification in nearly 15 years when it defeated South Fayette in the opening round last week.

The Warriors now have an opportunity to become the first No. 8 seed to win a Penguins Cup title since Canon-McMillan captured the 2010 Class 3A championship. Penn-Trafford plays Thomas Jefferson in the final at 6:15 p.m. Monday at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex.

Trailing 2-1 in the latter stages of the second period, the Warriors’ Drew Hall knotted the game for the second time, this time at 2, with his second goal of the game at 11:41.

“Our plan was just to dump it and to get it deep and get it to the net so we could score,” Hall said. “It was just a great game allaround.”

That was just a portent of what was to come.

With Norwin’s Dom Costantino in the box for crosschecking, Aiden Drotos poked the puck past Norwin netminder Owen Burmeister,

who failed to cover the right post on the short side, to give the Warriors their first lead, 3-2, at 13:24. Just 46 seconds later at 14:10, Gavin Paterson handed Penn-Trafford a two-goal advantage and Kyler Doran, who assisted on both Hall tallies, netted one of his own at 14:35 to put Penn-Trafford ahead, 5-2, at the intermission.

Other semifinal

Twice Franklin Regional took one-goal leads early in the game only to have Thomas Jefferson answer right back less than 20 seconds later.

When No. 2 Thomas Jefferson took its first lead, No. 6 Franklin Regional didn’t have an answer and the Jaguars were able to move on to the championship game for the second time in three years with a 9-3 rout.

Scott Allan, who finished with three goals and an assist, notched the go-ahead goal at 5:27 of the second period to give the Jaguars a 3-2 lead and they never looked back, Derek Schliebner tacked on an insurance tally at 7:09 and Ryder McGuirk padded the lead to 5-2 at 11:44.

Jake Stock, who scored both game-tying goals in the first period, also had a hat trick.