Franklin Regional hockey bests Mars to advance in PIHL playoffs

By: HSSN Staff
Monday, March 5, 2018 | 10:18 PM

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Moving up in class has been an enjoyable experience for the two-time defending Class A champion Franklin Regional hockey team. But it's been an adjustment, too, as the Panthers have been scratching out victories when the opportunities come along.

Just such a chance presented itself Monday night at Center Ice Arena in a PIHL Penguins Cup Class 2A play-in-round win against Mars.

“We had a much easier road to the playoffs in years past,” Franklin Regional coach Brian Kurtz said. “There were a lot of blowouts, and guys could get complacent. But you can't do that so much now. You can't take a day off.”

Franklin Regional (12-7-1) passed its first playoff test since moving up in class as Kevin Cakanac scored twice, including the go-ahead goal early in the third period, and the Panthers topped Mars, 5-3, to advance to a first-round game against Armstrong (16-3) on Thursday at Belmont Arena.

Nicholas Carretta also scored twice for Franklin Regional, the last an empty-netter to secure the victory in the waning seconds.

Patrick Roach scored twice for Mars (9-10-1).

“We can play better than we did tonight,” Kurtz said, “but this win is something to build on. It was a new experience.”

Franklin Regional led Mars, 1-0, after the first period on Cakanac's first goal at 15:20 and took a 2-0 lead 1 minute, 42 seconds into the second on Trent Lunden's goal.

But then came a stretch of complacency, and Mars was back in it with a pair of goals roughly two minutes apart by Roach and Braden Hanna.

“I'm disappointed because for a lot of the game, I felt we were the better team,” Mars coach Steve Meyers said. “Too many penalties. We're a physical team, but, really, too many penalties and that hurt us.”

Particularly a 10-minute misconduct call on defenseman Hudson Finn in the final minute of the second that carried over into the third.

“Our biggest problem really all season has been offense. We've scored fewer goals than anyone,” Meyers said. “Our strength is on defense and when we lost him for that amount of time, it made things tough on us.”

Franklin Regional quickly regained the lead to start the third period, and Kurtz said coming out of the locker room after the second intermission he believed the first team to score would win.

“We kind of knew the next goal was going to win it,” he said.

Cakanac's second goal at 2:31, a rebound shot, put Franklin Regional in the lead for good at 3-2, and the Panthers added another at 5:43 when Carretta gained control of the puck at the left circle and fired a shot past Mars goaltender Danny Mitchell, who stopped 17 shots.

Roach's power-play goal at 15:35 cut the lead to 4-3 before Mitchell came to the bench in favor of the extra attacker with under a minute to play.

But Franklin Regional made the lead stand to advance. Goaltender Daniel Soltesz stopped 16 shots for the Panthers, which lost to Armstrong during the teams' only regular-season meeting.

Dave Mackall is a freelance writer.

Tags: Franklin Regional, Mars