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Sports

Penncrest Hockey Team Rallies to Beat Haverford

Captain Matt Menta leads the way with a monster game, helping the Lions put a damper on the Fords' season finale.

HAVERTOWN—The night started out with lots of flowers and photos as Haverford's hockey organization honored its graduating seniors one by one, with parents coming out onto the ice to greet their children. It ended with a hard-won victory for the visiting Lions.

With an ICSHL record of 4-11-1, and a Central League record of 2-8-1, might not sound too threatening on paper, but they've had an injury-plagued season. This wasn't the case Thursday night.

"We're finally healthy," said head coach Steve Mescanti. "With a full lineup this season, we're 4-1."

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Make it 5-1 now.

Team captain Matt Menta, a junior, has been a hot hand of late, and he had his best game of the season. He opened the scoring at 5:40 of the first period after a nice corner feed from Brendan Howanski, another Lion who's been playing strong in the past few weeks.

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Haverford had a chance to tie it on a breakaway three minutes later, but Penncrest goaltender Garrett Johnston sprawled out with his left pad and kept his team ahead. The rest of the first period was a heated battle with plenty of bodies banging hard into the boards.

Penncrest looked to have better control of the puck and a few more quality scoring chances, while Haverford had trouble connecting on passes until the last few minutes of the period. The Fords' towering captain, Ryan Ferrill, led his team's hard-charging play and locked horns with Penncrest's captain on a few occasions. With 17 seconds left in the first period, Penncrest's Gabe Chuckran sprung loose from the pack and had a chance to put the Lions up 2-0, but was denied by a flashing glove hand of Haverford's Christopher Treat.

The second period saw Haverford on a long 5-on-3 powerplay, and they took full advantage of it, scoring at 2:35, and again just 15 seconds later on a blast from the point. Penncrest shook off the sudden score reversal with a burst of physical play led by Evan Delcasale and Chuckran, both of whom played a strong game at both ends of the ice. This resurgance drew a retaliation penalty from Haverford, but Penncrest couldn't cash in on any of the numerous scoring chances during the ensuing powerplay. Chuckran bombarded the net with shots from the blue line, and several other pucks slid through the goal crease before being batted away.

With 7:30 left in the second period, the puck popped out of Penncrest's zone, and Chris Coughlin outraced everyone to it, snapping a shot past Haverford's goalie to get his team back to an even score. The rest of the period saw a number of big hits and odd-man rushes for both teams, all of which were thwarted by strong goaltending in both nets. Penncrest seemed to have trouble clearing their zone in the middle period, and Haverford tightened up their passing game.

One minute into the third period, Haverford was called for a penalty. On the resulting powerplay, Chuckran passed the puck along the blue line to Tom Naselli, who blasted it on net. Fighting through the scrum around the net, the rebound was eventually poked home by Menta for his second of the night, putting the Lions up 3-2.

Haverford's Ferrill wasted no time getting his team right back into a tie, scoring an unassisted goal on the very next play.

With 8:14 left, Menta completed his hat trick, striking from the bottom of the left circle with assists by Delcasale and Chuckran. One excited fan threw his hat onto the ice in celebration.

The Fords pulled the goalie with 1:30 left and put some pressure on the Lions before the puck was sprung loose by—guess who—Matt Menta. The captain took a long shot between the legs of a Haverford defender that missed the net by inches, but bounced off the back dasher just hard enough to come back out in front of the net as Menta outraced his opponent and tucked it in for his fourth goal of the night.

"Matt Menta never surprises me," said coach Mescanti after the game. "He was easily the best player on the ice tonight. He's skilled, smart, determined and knows the game as good as anyone. A true leader, he makes the players around him better. I remember him as a first grader skating in our summer clinic and he was skilled and smart then—even against high school kids."

Talking with Menta about his first four-goal outing of the season, the Lions captain attributes his hot play to the fact that he's finally back to full health after separating his left shoulder earlier in the season.

Coach Mescanti was clearly happy with his team's 5-3 victory. "I thought we played with emotion and the desperation we needed in order to clinch a playoff spot. It's nice to have a full lineup and be able to play the way we like instead of juggling guys. We've only had that luxury six times this season. No excuses, other guys need to step up, but I've never seen a season with so many injuries. Very good team effort, aggressive when needed, smart and defensive when the situation dictated."

The coach also had good things to say about several other players in addition to Menta.

"Brendan Howanski is the perfect guy to play with Gabe (Chuckran) and Matt (Delcasale). Hustles all the time, smart, determined and defensively responsible. Gabe obviously was solid all night as well. All over the ice, strong on the backcheck and defensively. Our other guys: Chris Prince, who was sick as a dog, Chris Coughlin, big second goal, and Kevin Dougherty were all important and effective too. It doesn't happen with just one line.

Our defense—Naselli, Gekoski, Impagliazzo and Ankrum—played a very gritty, scrappy game tonight. Not pretty, but effective. I mean, Haverford's three goals were a 5-on-3 power play, another power play and a bounce off the Zamboni door. They battled all night long and got the job done."

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