Joe Sager

Times Sports Correspondent

Quaker Valley’s hockey team is back where it believes it belongs – in PIHL’s Class A.

After spending the past five years in Class 2A, the Quakers find themselves in familiar territory. They claimed five Penguins Cup Class A titles (2006, ’08, ’12, ’13, ’14) in 10 years before the PIHL’s comparative formula bumped the program up to Class 2A starting with the 2015-16 season.

In Class 2A, they didn’t struggle at first. Quaker Valley lost in the first round of the ’16 playoffs, reached the ’17 semifinals and fell to Armstrong 5-0 in the ’18 Penguins Cup championship game. However, the enrollment disadvantage caught up to Quaker Valley as the team fell in the ’19 play-in round and didn’t reach the playoffs last year.

The Quakers’ major concern with playing in Class 2A was their enrollment, which ranks 39th out of 46 PIHL varsity teams.

“For me, we’ve won enough. I care more about the safety of the kids. Quite honestly, the safety factor was a big issue for me.”

Quaker Valley hopes the move has a ripple effect throughout the program, which does not have a junior varsity team.

“With dropping down to Class A, kids who recently decided not to play have come back or are thinking about coming back, so we have some numbers coming up,” Quaker Valley senior Bodhi Wilson said. “We have a lot of younger kids this year and we’d be playing against schools that had three times or five times our student body, so I think Single-A is a lot better for us.”

“The last few years, we’ve had one goalie and not a lot of kids, overall, and we were playing schools that had more hockey players in their program than people in our entire school,” Kevin Quinn said. “We’ll keep working to get our numbers back to where they were. The kids are excited about getting back on the ice. We have a good, deep group of kids coming up – seventh and eighth graders who are very high-level. We are expecting that, once they join up with the varsity group, we’ll be just fine.”

CLASS AA

Both teams in the Times coverage area – Moon and West Allegheny – have new head coaches. Jeff Tindall takes over at Moon, which finished 2-16 last year. The Tigers have four seniors in Logan Zarin, Clayton Cooper, Austin Cooper and Dominic Jovanelly. Offensively, the team will look to Zachary Love, Connor Moran, Chase Dawkin, Austin Cooper and Brendan Camardese for offense. Moran (6 goals, 5 assists) is the team’s top returning scorer. Zarin (6G, 4A) should provide a spark from the blue line, while Andrew Finnegan is another top defenseman. Junior Liam McCullough returns in goal. Freshman Tyler Rieke will see time, too.

CLASS A

Once again, Beaver, Blackhawk and Sewickley Academy find themselves grouped in the Northwest Division. This year, North Catholic departed, but was replaced by Erie McDowell, which results in some long bus rides. Beaver returns a bulk of its roster from a 1-19 team. Junior Andreas Portugallo (8G, 2A) led the team in scoring last year, but is recovering from a broken hand and is expected to miss the team’s first two or three games. Austin McElwain is the team’s lone senior. Kyle Shearer, Josh Sitler and John Dioguardi are some of the team’s other top forwards. Freshmen Dom Cerilli and Carter Denelle are on defense. Sophomore Dom Amthor returns at goaltender, while freshman Caleb Berardelli will see time between the pipes as well.

Jim Hofer takes over as Blackhawk’s head coach. He was an assistant coach the past five years. Forward Eli Schaefer and defenseman Jimmy Hofer are the team’s lone seniors and co-captains. Junior Danny Frkuska (8G, 7A) and Jacob Hofer (5G, 7A) are squad’s top returning scorers. Juniors Coop Ronacher and Evan Kovacevic are expected to be factors on offense as well. Juniors Brandon Shablesky and Nick Vurdelja are two other top defensemen. Junior Josh Paulovich returns at goaltender. The Cougars finished 7-14 last year after a 5-0 loss to Thomas Jefferson in the Penguins Cup quarterfinals.

Quaker Valley returns to Class A and is in the Southwest Division with Chartiers Valley, North Hills and South Park. Junior captain Max Quinn (3G, 11A) is the team’s top returning scorer. Noah Mattie (6G, 4A), Luke Flowers (4G, 2A), Ben Carlson (2G, 8A), Braedan Steffey, Kyle Rice and Riley Moore are some of the team’s top forwards. The team’s lone seniors – Bodhi Wilson and Shane Moore – lead the defense, along with Hayden Earlewine and Quinn. Bob Carey, Carter Siuciak and freshmen John McHenry, Will Watson, Noah Kenneweg and Coleman Carey will see time as well. Freshman Ben Collins is the team’s lone goaltender.

CLASS B

Central Valley graduated a dozen seniors from last year’s squad that finished 3-14. Captain Neil Domico (3G, 4A) and alternate captains Mitchell Angelo and Seth Depenhart are the team’s top returning forwards. Senior Marc Evans leads the defense. Junior Nick Lyon is the Warriors’ goaltender. Like in the past, the squad has co-ops with Riverside, Freedom, New Brighton and Beaver Falls.