The party's on!
NEVILLE ISLAND — Patrick Hammonds eyes welled with tears as he moved down the hallway toward the celebration echoing from the Butler hockey team's locker room at the RMU Island Sports Center.
The first-year Golden Tornado coach didn't take many steps before the party joined him.
Junior defenseman Jonathan Fair picked him up off the ground in a hug that nearly sent both tumbling into the blue concrete walls.
The rush of earning the school's first bid to the PIHL Class AAA Penguins Cup — and a trip to Consol Energy Center — with a 3-1 semifinal win over defending champion Peters Township Tuesday night off-set any mild pain a celebration mishap may cause.
The Golden Tornado — which finished 1-21 three seasons ago — will meet fifth-seeded Canon-McMillan in the finals at 7:15 p.m. Saturday.
“What these boys have accomplished is nothing short of incredible and I really don't have any words to describe it,” Hammonds said. “It's incredible to see a team like Butler, an organization like Butler that's been through so much (succeed). To see the boys give so much of themselves to the organization to get to Consol is truly special.”
Butler senior goaltender Clay Bachman made 46 stops for the Golden Tornado.
His freshman season was after the varsity team returned from a two-year break. Now, sixth-seeded Butler (13-8-3) is back on everyone's radar after upsetting the second-seeded Indians and third-seeded Bethel Park en route to the finals.
“It puts us up on a pedestal,” Bachman said. “You beat the top two teams in the league, everyone's going to be looking out for that.”
The Big Macs advanced by running away with a 7-0 win over top-seeded North Allegheny.
There was nothing easy about Butler's win.
Holding a 2-1 lead, Trevor Gilliland was whistled for interference with 2 minutes remaining.Peters Township — which had a 6-on-4 advantage after pulling its goalie — nearly evened the game on a scramble a minute later.Following the face-off, Fair slid the puck toward the neutral zone when junior forward Connor Scott corralled it.He hit a backhand shot from center ice that wobbled in the empty net with 34 seconds remaining.“I was just praying, man,” Bachman said. “I was hoping for the best and it just trickled in.”Scott isn't sure it's a shot he could make again.“I don't know. It's pretty hard,” Scott said. “Jon Fair made a great play down low to anticipate the pass from the defenseman. I left the zone because I thought he was going to clear it.”Scott's empty-netter provided relief after the Indians (17-5-2) applied 36 minutes of unrelenting pressure after his first goal.Peters Township out-shot the Golden Tornado 47-25.“We were trying to go back-door and they were cutting down on the cross-seam passes,” Indians coach Rick Tingle said. “They took away the obvious things and we tried to adjust and they took those away, too.”Scott's first goal came on a shot after he skated past the blue line to gain more time in the zone. The puck trickled past Kyle Madore, who finished with 20 saves.Hammonds said getting the first goal didn't mean he wanted his team to sit back.“Our strategy doesn't change. In-between periods, we make adjustments, but strategy doesn't change,” Hammonds said. “We don't back off and we don't ease up. We take pride in our performance and battle the whole game.”Ben Rodgers doubled the lead for Butler, lifting the puck underneath the crossbar with 7:26 remaining.Peters Township answered two minutes later when Adam Alavi split defenders at mid-ice and put the puck between Bachman's legs.“We just had to keep it in our mind to keep going,” Rodgers said.Butler's defense kept working.The Indians sent attackers in waves, but couldn't find the moves to even the game.It was the Golden Tornado's night.Butler put together an upset no one in the program — or the PIHL — will easily forget.“This should definitely put us on the map for one of the top teams in the league to be remembered for a long time,” Scott said.
