The Bethlehem/Central Catholic hockey team fell down by a goal three different times and fought back to tie the game twice, but just didn't come up with a third goal in losing its final regular season game 3-2 to Salisbury/Whitehall last Monday night at the Lehigh Valley Ice Arena.

"We've had problems scoring goals," said head coach John Heckenberger. "We're snake bitten if that's what you want to call it. We fought hard, but we let those early goals in which didn't help. They came out strong this time after we got them last time."

These two teams last played on November 19th, with Becahi/Central coming out on top with a 4-0 shutout victory. This one ended a little differently.

Max Beedle received a pass from Kyle Blum and snuck a wrist-shot behind Charles Varga (20 saves) for the opening goal, just 0:22 into the game. It was a fast start for Salisbury/Whitehall, and it looked as if they were going to cruise in this one. They outshot Becahi/Central for the first 10 minutes, but then were faced with some pressure on their net.

Becahi/Central (5-11) was down two players because of penalties, but they looked like the offensive-minded team in that short span of time. Reid Seifert raced onto the puck at the mid line and found himself on a breakaway. Seifert tied the game with his short-handed effort.

In the second period, once again, Salisbury/Whitehall took the lead back with an early goal scored in the first minute. Matt Emerick ripped a slap shot that was blocked away by Varga, but it landed on the stick of Gavin Carey who is in the right place at the right time and knocked it in.

Becahi/Central fought right back. Tristan Collins (26 saves) dove onto an attempted pass through his crease, but the puck fell out and Sean Schirripa pounced on the open puck to tie game back up at two. Zak Wilchek and AJ DeGaetano were credited with assists.

But Salisbury/Whitehall showed their fight and resiliency to take the lead back in the third period. Brad Owens hit his shot, and that gave his team some breathing room after Becahi/Central nearly took the lead a couple of times just before.

"We've played hard all season, we just haven't scored enough goals," added Heckenberger. "It's disappointing because we have talent and we're getting good opportunities to score, we just haven't been finishing."

Becahi/Central will look to score more goals when postseason play begins next Monday when they will play in the Non-Pure division playoffs against top seed Northampton (9-6-1).