Playing in front of a capacity crowd at Belmont Ice Complex that had whipped itself into a frenzy of March madness well before the opening puck was dropped, the Kittanning hockey team cruised into the PIHL's Class A final four.

Junior defenseman Jake Enders scored four times during Kittanning's seven-goal second period and had a game-high five points, leading the No. 2 Wildcats to a 9-3 pasting of No. 7 Knoch on Wednesday night in a Penguins Cup quarterfinal game.

But on a night when Kittanning's top-ranked offense was as precise as it had been all season, Enders played down his role in the rout.

"I didn't do anything special tonight," Enders said. "I think you could get a terrier to do what I did. I just kind of popped it in from the back door."

After picking up a postseason victory for the first time since 2006, Kittanning (21-2) moved on to face third-seeded Serra Catholic either Monday or Tuesday at 5 p.m. in the semifinals at Mellon Arena.

"I've been wanting to play at Mellon Arena since I was in seventh grade and I went down and saw Kittanning play Pine-Richland," Enders said. "That didn't work out too great for Kittanning, but just playing out the scene in my head, it would be unbelievable."

The Wildcats will head to Pittsburgh with a tinge of regret, though. Yesterday's crowd — mostly adorned in white T-shirts as part of a 'White-Out' — was the largest Belmont Ice Complex had seen all season and brought an intense atmosphere to the proceedings from the start.

"This town is phenomenal like that," Kittanning coach Jamie King said. "They were great, and I'm sure we'll have a really good following at Mellon Arena."

Against Knoch (15-9), Kittanning looked like a team ready to play on the big stage.

After the Wildcats killed a minute-long, 5-on-3 Knoch power play in the opening minutes of the game, Troy Schall poked a puck between Knoch goaltender Ryan Naples' legs following a well-placed pass from Heinz Koster at 6:24 of the first period to open the game's scoring. Just 2 1/2 minutes later, Jordan Ford bumped Kittanning's lead to 2-0 — where the score stayed for the rest of the period.

It was in the second period that Kittanning truly began to dominate, scoring seven goals on 12 shots.

Ford scored for a second time 42 seconds into the period, and teammate Jurgen Koster added another goal less than a minute after that. Enders had the next three Kittanning scores before Schall collected his second goal of the game.

Putting the running clock into effect, Enders scored Kittanning's final goal with 1:34 remaining in the period.

"We're definitely happy," King said. "The second period was a really good period of hockey."

Knoch senior Evan Gorse had the only goal of the penalty-plagued third period and finished the game with a hat trick.

Ford, Jurgen Koster and Schall each finished with four points for the Wildcats. Heinz Koster and teammate Nolan Smouse, meanwhile, had three assists each.

Kittanning goaltender Cory Norton was sharp, stopping 15 of 17 shots, while his counterpart, Naples, made 29 saves on a busy night in the net.

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