FIVE ALIVE: West Chester Rustin edges W.C. East in thriller for fifth straight Flyers Cup

WEST GOSHEN >> People of a certain age may remember the Pink Floyd song, “Welcome to the Machine.”

For the West Chester Rustin ice hockey team, the machine may have suffered a crack or two this season, but it still continues to hum.

Brett Owens collected a hat trick as the Golden Knights jumped out to a huge first-period lead, then staved off a valiant West Chester East comeback for a 5-4 victory in the Flyers Cup A title game in front of a boisterous near-capacity crowd at Ice Line on Wednesday.

Rustin’s Flyers Cup streak survived as it won its fifth straight Class A crown, and will have a chance for an unprecedented fifth consecutive state title at Ice Line on March 24.

“It’s awesome. East is always a worthy opponent,” said Rustin coach Nick Russo. “It’s crazy. Hats off to them. It makes it a little bit sweeter. I’m now going to enjoy this for a few days, then get ready for whoever out west.”

Rustin started out sensationally by scoring four times in the first period. Nicholas Ferraro put the exclamation point on the first 17 minutes by scoring just before the buzzer as the Golden Knights completed their best period of the season in dominating fashion.

“By far the best,” Russo added. “Then we got into some penalty issues. We got off our game plan.”

“You spot a team like that a four-goal lead and more times than not, you’re going to lose,” said East coach Eric Wolf. “But we never felt like we were out of it. We felt like we just missed the net too much early on. We started to get the puck on the net, and good things started to happen.”

So, a 4-0 advantage for the top seed meant game over, right? Not so fast, my scholastic hockey fan.

The Vikings re-energized their student section behind their captain Dylan McLaughlin. He put East on the board by one-timing a pass from Nick Castura for a power-play goal — one of three for East on the evening.

“We started a new power play last week in practice,” said McLaughlin. “We started trying to get it to me in the slot, and it worked. We got a couple of goals off of it.

“Just really proud of my guys here. We started out slow, but we came back. Proud of my guys for fighting back.”

McLaughlin made it 4-2 with a little under four minutes left. A shot was deflected and the bounce fortuitously came to McLaughlin at the side of the net to the left of goalie Joel Keller. He slammed it in to cut the deficit in half.

Things got even tighter as Charlie Carsello scored on a delayed penalty to make it 4-3 and send the East fans into hysterics. The Vikings had a couple of chances for the tying goal, but were turned away.

Owens then seemingly slammed the door shut with 8:56 left, speeding into the zone, dangling the puck to get an extra sliver of space, then firing the puck past goalie Joey Galitski.

Owens was given the Bobby Clarke Award as the tournament’s Most Valuable Player.

“That was good,” said Owens. “I just felt that I had to do something. Ferraro made a good pass to me. I just had to finish. I’m ecstatic. This one probably feels better than the others,”

Still, the Vikings came back and set up a thrilling finish as Castura, the leading scorer in the playoffs with 13 points, was alone on the backdoor and poked home a pass from Jack Hamilton.

The Rustin defense tightened when they needed to as East didn’t have many good looks in the final five minutes, and the trophy remained in Rustin’s grasp.

The atmosphere was terrific as both crowds cheered every check and groaned audibly after every missed scoring chance.

“They fuel us,” said Wolf on the student section. “They got it rocking, and we needed it. Honestly, tonight, we needed a shot of adrenaline after it was 4-0 and they provided it.”

Now, even with so much history already on their side, the Golden Knights get a chance to make more of it. Plus, they don’t have to travel too far to do it as the state final will be played at Ice Line.

“My first one was here at Ice Line in 2009,” said Russo. “I would never, ever forget that first one. I still wear the ring. But, being back here is really special.”

And the machine keeps churning out titles on that assembly line.

“It’s a great night for Rustin ice hockey,” a happy Russo said.

NOTE >> The all-tournament team was made up of only players from East and Rustin. Owens, Castura and Ferraro were the forwards. Richard Mullineaux of East and Jack Page of Rustin were the defense, while Galitski was the goalie.

W.C. Rustin 5, W.C. East 4
W.C. East 0 2 2 – 4
W.C. Rustin 4 0 1 – 5
W.C. East goals: McLaughlin 2, Carsello, Castura.
W.C. Rustin goals: Owens 3, Ferraro 2
Goalie saves: Galitski (WCE) 28, Keller (WCR) 21.