CB West falls in Flyers Cup AA 1st round to Parkland

HATFIELD TWP. >> Christian Young’s breakaway goal early in the third period provided Central Bucks West hope.

The black and gold portion of the near-capacity crowd at Hatfield Ice came screaming back to life and a once insurmountable Parkland lead was carved down to two.

“I think we took the game away from them a little bit. I thought (Parkland was) the better team and I thought there was a period of time there that we took the play away from them,” Bucks coach Dave Baun said.

“We got a goal. And we needed to get the next goal. And I think that would have been a real momentum changer.”

The Bucks generated some more opportunities, but it would be the Trojans who would score the remaining two goals, nailing down a 5-1 victory over West in the opening round of the AA Flyers Cup Tuesday night.

“They got the early jump and they got a lot of shots on goal. They were making our goaltender (Jeremy Kennard, Nick Ritz) work hard and they have a couple guys that can move the puck well,” Baun said.

The win advances Parkland to Thursday’s quarterfinals, to take on either Conestoga or Spring-Ford.

The Trojans put two on the board in the first period. Timmy Doe set up Jake Nimeh and then Doe scored unassisted, and it was 2-0 Parkland, the sixth seed in AA.

“They’re good players. My feeling was they were perfectly seeded,” Baun said of the Trojans. “And so were we. They’re right where they belong. They’re right up there with the teams in the top echelon.”

The 11th seeded Bucks battled, even after falling behind 3-0 when Nimeh’s pass found the stick of Koby Staivecki, who put it away for a key power-play goal.

Young scored two minutes into the third to cut it to 3-1, but Gus Schwartz and Eric Dennis found the back of the net for Parkland to lock things up.