Mars shakes Quakers
WARRENDALE — Quaker Valley entered Tuesday night's PIHL Class A hockey game against Mars riding a four-game winning streak.
The Quakers outscored their opponents 36-7 during that stretch.
None of that mattered to the Planets (6-0), who cruised to an 8-0 victory at Warrendale BladeRunners.
Mars has outscored its opponents 54-4 so far this season.
“Do they have a weakness? None,” said veteran Quaker Valley coach Kevin Quinn. “Forget about being the best in Single-A. ... It could be Double-A, Triple-A, absolutely. I don't see anyone better.”
Tyler Stepke stopped 18 shots, including a number of quality scoring chances,— to record his second shutout. No team has scored more than one goal in a game against Mars this year.
Stepke had to come up big early in the game, stopping the Quakers' Kevin Kenny on a breakaway less than four minutes into the contest. Kenny plowed into Stepke after the play, knocking the mask from his head and temporarily stunning the goaltender.
Kenny received a two-minute penalty and Stepke received attention from the trainer.
“That was a horrible play,” Mars coach Steve Meyers said. “I was surprised Tyler got up from that. He suffered a bit of a stinger, but he's a tough kid.”
The Planets responded with a pair of goals from Elliot Tisdale before the period ended.
Tisdale's first goal was an attempted centering pass from behind the net that deflected off the back of Quaker Valley goalie Zach Gittin and into the net.
Tisdale scored on a rebound 38 seconds later, with 5:31 left in the opening period.
“What happened to Tyler ... a play like that can serve as the trigger to a team,” Mars defenseman Kevin Leslie said. “It definitely fired up our team.”
The Planets' specialty units doomed the Quakers (5-2) from there. After failing to score on its early power play, Mars scored on each of its other four opportunities with the man advantage.
Three of those power play goals came in the second period, when Joe Bender netted a pair and Nick Blaney added one.
Tisdale completed a hat trick 3:13 into the final period, giving him 10 goals for the season. Rob Foley and Max Master also scored for the Planets.
“We played OK in the first period, but we only have one senior, so we're dealing with that,” Quinn said. “We're a young team that just wants to improve as the season goes on.”
Quaker Valley managed only one shot with a two-man advantage during the first 1:30 of the third period.
“We spend most of our time in practice working on specialty units,” Meyers said. “We know that's a big part of our game.”
Quaker Valley was 0-for-3 on the power play overall. Mars had a 27-18 edge in shots on goal.
“We're still not playing our best hockey,” Meyers said. “When we won the St. Margaret's (preseason) tournament, we were at our best. We've been trying to get back to that level of play since.”
