Cole Slemmer scored twice in the opening 23 minutes, and Will Shaw had a hat trick as Quakertown (4-3) skated away with a 5-2 win over second-place Plymouth Whitemarsh Friday night in Hatfield.
Slemmer needed just 47 seconds to end Plymouth Whitemarsh’s shutout. He added a goal six minutes into the second to extend the Panther lead to 3-0.
“I told everyone that we needed the first goal,” Slemmer said. “We tied him up on the faceoff and I was right there and shot it in. With the second, I had the puck in the neutral zone and I dumped it down. I saw our guy was on the left side. I went to the net, there was no one there and I tapped it in.”
Shaw, who made the defensive play of the night late in the first when he corralled and cleared a PW shot in the goalie crease, scored 12 seconds into the second. The Colonials responded with two scores in three minutes, but Shaw’s rocket just four seconds into a power play gave Quakertown a 4-2 advantage with two minutes left in the second.
Shaw, who added an empty netter, is tied with Branden McNally for the team points lead at 14. Slemmer ranks second on Quakertown with nine goals. “We all do an equal amount of work. Everyone works together,” Shaw pointed out. “Everyone did a good job getting in their positions.”
Defensively, goalie Matthew Krem had statistically his best night of the year saving 28 of 30 shots. The Panthers killed all three Colonial power plays, including a 5 on 3 disadvantage for over 90 seconds in the second.
“That was huge,” said the backstop. “I felt that could have been the turning point in the game. We just had to push through it and what solidified that win was that penalty kill.”
For Quakertown, Friday was a pleasant departure from when these two clubs met two weeks prior. The Panthers held a 5-3 lead at the end of the second period and fell 7-5.
“We were a little more focused this time,” Krem shared. “We focused on our system. Our defensive coverage last time was a problem. That was a talking point coming into practice that week after the game, and we turned it around in this game.”
“We still have stuff to work on,” Slemmer pointed out. “Our neutral zone wasn’t that good and we turned it over but we did well getting pucks to the net.”
The Panthers opened this season with three blowout wins, yet carried a three-game losing streak into Friday. Quakertown led, or tied, through two periods in all three losses but struggled to put teams away.
“We only have 11 guys,” coach Keith Krem pointed out. “We had failed to manage the game correctly for a lot of the third period and we had gotten sloppy. Today, we managed the game. We got to the red line. We had a lead. We got pucks deep, made them play 200 feet, took away the middle of the ice and Matty played well. Everything came together the way we wanted.”
The Panthers program is rising. Only four years old, and winner of just three of its first 32 games, Quakertown has won 11 of its last 19 regular season games extending to last season.
“This feels awesome,” Shaw shared. “A high school league is supposed to be fun and those first few years, where we were losing many of our games, it was hard to have fun. Now that we have a rhythm and a strong team, it’s super fun.”
Quakertown routed Bensalem 6-1 on opening night. The Owls, playing their second game in 24 hours, beat defending state champion Pennridge 6-3 three weeks later. “On any given night, we feel we can field a good team and compete with anybody,” coach Krem said. “The Bensalem win means a lot but with this win tonight, we feel like we should be in the conversation for the top of our division.”
Quakertown played Springfield late Wednesday, then enters winter break with a Friday night match against unbeaten Abington, the first-place team in the SHSHL American.
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