Quaker Valley hockey players head to USA Hockey nationals
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Two members of the Quaker Valley varsity hockey team earned a trip to the 2021 USA Hockey Youth Tier II National Championships last week with their respective North Pittsburgh Wildcat travel teams.
Sophomore Luke Flowers joined the 16U team in Grand Rapids, Mich., and freshman Will Watson is representing the 14U team in Dallas, Texas.
The North Pittsburgh Tier II 16U boys hockey team won the Mid-Am District national-qualifying tournament in late March.
The Wildcats (20-12-1) lost their first game to the Pittsburgh Predators, 4-3, in a double overtime shootout.
But they responded with convincing wins over the Armstrong Arrows, 8-2, and the Westmoreland Eagles, 6-1, before edging the Arctic Foxes, 3-2, in overtime to win the championship.
“I was very proud of the guys,” coach Mark Pittman said. “With the slowdowns with covid quarantines and also injuries during the season, we were hoping to get some bounces to go our way. We started out ranked third in the country. The guys were very resilient, and to recover like we did in the (Mid-Am) tournament and win the title, that was pretty special.”
North Pittsburgh’s Tier II 14U team, 35-8-1 on the season, won all five of its Mid-Am state tournament games, outscoring its opponents 27-10 and defeating the Allegheny Badgers, 5-3, in the finals.
“From the top at USA Hockey all the way down to the team level, getting that opportunity this year at nationals is such a great accomplishment because of the uncertainty all season long of how everything was going to play out,” Wildcats 14U coach John Kaltenecker said.