Porkka’s four goals send Spring-Ford over Perk Valley, 5-3

The past few years, Perkiomen Valley and SpringFord have locked horns in some memorable tilts on the basketball court, football and softball fields — just to name a few.

Clearly, the rivalry has spread to the hockey rink.

Fans from both sides packed Oaks Center Ice for Thursday night’s contest, and were treated (or punished, in PV’s case) to a virtuoso performance from Spring-Ford senior forward Carson Porkka.

Porkka tallied a firstperiod hat trick en route to a four-goal night as the Rams completed their season sweep of PV, 5-3.

Porkka serves as captain for Spring-Ford and has now amassed 10 goals in five conference games for the Rams (3-1-0-1 PAC, 4-40-2). He’s clearly the engine for the Rams’ offense, and was also the No. 1 target of the raucous Perkiomen Valley student section, who showed up in the form of a full-force blackout to support their designated home team Vikings.

“It helps — I love it,” Porkka said of the animated audience. “You’re out there, end of a long shift, feeling tired ... and they’re yelling your name, it gives you some more drive.”

Not that he necessarily needed the added motivation. Porkka started the scoring just two minutes into the contest with a blast from just inside the faceoff circle. After PV’s Hunter Ringwood equalized at 10:05, Porkka answered back just over a minute later for a 2-1 lead.

The third goal may have been the prettiest of the evening as Porkka crossed the red line alone, made a move around a PV defenseman and just in time to elude a poke-check attempt, fired a laser just under the crossbar to extend the Rams’ lead.

But the back-breaking goal came off the stick of Saxon Vargo just before the first intermission. A PV power play was cancelled by an interference penalty in the dying moments of the first period, and off the ensuing faceoff Vargo’s shot handcuffed the PV netminder, extending the SF lead to 4-1 and taking away any Vikings momentum.

Two seconds remained on the clock at the time of Vargo’s goal.

“That was huge,” said Porkka. “It’s a team effort out there. I felt great tonight, but a lot of the credit goes to our goaltender Matt Magee, who was awesome.”

Indeed, after Ringwood’s early marker for PV, Magee was a brick wall for much of the evening, finishing the game with 21 saves. After Porkka finished out the Rams’ scoring for the evening in the second period, Magee spent much of the third stanza thwarting PV rallies, making consecutive saves on golden opportunities on multiple occasions.

The Vikings were able to solve Magee with 3:13 remaining with Ringwood’s second goal of the game, and again when Mike Waters cashed in on a 5-on-3 power play with only nine seconds remaining. But by that point, Porkka, Magee, and the Rams had the final outcome well in hand.

The victory came with some mixed feelings for Spring-Ford head coach James Ginnetti. Ginnetti, in his first year at the helm for the Rams, coached PV for the past several years.

“When we played PV the first time this year (a 5-1 Spring-Ford victory), that game was tough for me, because suddenly I’m going against these (PV) players ... they’re seniors now, and I knew them as freshmen,” he said.

The victory evened SF’s overall record at 4-4-0-2 (the final number signifying overtime losses, for which teams are awarded one point in the standings) but more importantly, they improved to 4-1-0-1 in the conference. For now, the Rams are chasing Owen J. Roberts (5-1-0-0) at the top, but Ginnetti’s confident they’ll see the Wildcats again in the playoffs.

“Our game with Owen J. last month (one of SF’s overtime losses) was evenly played,” he offered. “Tough way to lose in the end, but that’s been the story for us so far. A one-goal loss to (undefeated) Springfield, a one-goal loss to Malvern Prep, and the OJR game. We’re so close to putting it all together.”

On the Vikings’ side, first-year coach and Perkiomen Valley graduate Brennan McCourt is navigating what he calls some “bumps in the road” in his first attempt to navigate the program.

“Obviously, tonight was a big game, a rivalry game,” he said. “We know we have some ground to make up within the division now.

“We’re just continuing to emphasize each player doing their job, not trying to do too much. When we get there, everything will come together.”