Tom Whetsel scored the winner 2:55 into the third overtime as Bethel Park outlasted Mt. Lebanon for a 3-2 victory in what is believed to be the longest PIHL Penguin Cup playoff game of all time last night in the Class AAA semifinals at Mellon Arena.

"Zack Blake shot it from the point, and it tipped off a stick and came to me," said Whetsel, the team's leading scorer in the regular season who also scored earlier in last night's contest. "It's a great feeling. It was a great game."

It is the seventh time in the past 12 years Bethel Park is in the Penguin Cup final. The Black Hawks lost to North Allegheny in last season's final in double overtime.

Bethel Park (16-5-2) was the No. 6 seed and had lost to the No. 2 seed Blue Devils, 2-0, in an outdoor game at South Park that ended the regular season two weeks ago.

"We gave it everything we had tonight," Black Hawks captain Tyler Trocano said. "We left nothing on the table."

After tying the score on a Brandon Bianco goal with 1:27 to play in regulation, Mt. Lebanon (19-2-2) had the majority of the chances in overtime but couldn't solve Ben Garcia, who made 24 saves.

"I'm happy with the way we played in the overtime periods," Blue Devils coach Paul Taibi said "[But] I'm not real happy with the way we played in regulation time. I don't think we played our game then."

Matt Quigley scored the other goal for Bethel Park and Brooks Behling also scored for Mt. Lebanson.

The Black Hawks return to Mellon Arena March 19 to play Pine-Richland in the Penguin Cup championship game.

In the Class AA semifinal game played last night, one team was at the top of its game.

"I've been saying all season this you haven't seen our best game yet," Franklin Regional coach Jim Daugherty said. "I think this might have been our best game."

The other team wasn't.

"We just weren't the same tonight," Bishop Canevin coach Kevin Zielmanski said. "We were so much better toward the end of the season."

The result was a 4-2 Panthers win that sends them to the finals for the first time since 2003. Eugene Mack had two goals and two assists for Franklin Regional, the No. 3 seed which avenged a 4-0 defeat to No. 2 Bishop Canevin during the last week of the regular season.

"A kid on our team brought in a picture of the scoreboard that said 4-0 ... of that game," Mack said. "So everyone looked at it for about 10 minutes [for motivation]."

"That [loss] was probably helpful in hindsight," Daugherty said. "That was probably one of the best things that could have happened. You go through a long season, and you think you're this or that, and you get a little wakeup call toward the end -- that can be beneficial."

John Cecere and Steve Shirk had the other goals for Franklin Regional, which advanced to play No. 1 seed Latrobe in the Penguin Cup final at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Mellon Arena.