Heading into the PIHL Class AA Penguins Cup playoffs, the Latrobe hockey team had lost two of its final four regular-season games after dropping only one to that point in the season.

The Wildcats would still earn the classification's No. 1 seed in the postseason, but no one was calling them the favorites anymore.

"Everyone was saying, 'Wow, what's wrong with Latrobe?'" coach Ron Makoski said.

They aren't asking that now after the Wildcats won the first Penguins Cup title in school history with a 3-2 overtime win against Franklin Regional Tuesday at Mellon Arena.

Makoski said there was plenty of reason for the team's late-season swoon.

"We had one kid out with surgery on his shoulder [junior forward and third leading scorer Ryan LaDuke], another kid out for the season with an injured elbow [defenseman Josh Harris], [senior forward] Jeff Rosi injured his shoulder and did not play in the quarterfinal game ... We had a lot of guys out there playing hurt.

"Our goalie [Nick Loyacona] almost broke his wrist snowboarding a month ago. [Freshman Zack LaDuke] had a pretty bad charley horse. We wanted to keep these under wraps because we didn't want teams to know what we were up against.

"These kids really came back hard."

That was especially true in Rossi's case, as he scored twice Tuesday, including the game-winner in overtime. He did not play in the quarterfinals two weeks ago and was limited to only a few minutes in the semifinals last week.

Also with a big game in the final after returning from injury was Zack LaDuke, who was on the ice most of the night against Franklin Regional's top line.

They were just two reasons why Latrobe (22-3) was so good all season along. The Wildcats started the season 17-1 and were ranked No. 1 for much of the campaign.

They boasted the goalie with the third-best goals-against average among starting netminders in the Class AA regular season in Nick Loyacona and had two of the classification's top seven scorers in Mike McCurdy and JeffJoe Regula.

Ryan LaDuke was also in the top 10 until sustaining his injury and still finished 21st despite playing only 15 games.

"We knew [a championship] was a possibility the whole time," Rossi said. "We had a pretty good season. We were just hoping [to get some of the injured players back]. We'd been playing and practicing, looking forward to this [championship] game for a long time."

"We had been the No. 2 seed in the playoffs last year and lost in the quarters in overtime," Makoski said.

"Back in July when we first started training camp, we obviously felt like this team could challenge for the Penguins Cup. That was our goal all year long, and we're so happy to achieve it."

Even though Latrobe had blown a third-period lead Tuesday that forced overtime, Makoski said he was confident when regulation ended. The Wildcats had won in overtime in the semifinals and now have won all three overtime games they have played this season.

"I've told my kids in the six years I've been coaching at Latrobe, when you get into overtime, a lot of teams play cautious," Makoski said. "We never play cautious in overtime.

"We figure we're going to win it or they'll beat us, but we do not hold back in overtime. That's what we do when we're successful.

"I felt real good about it right from the very first shift. I thought we put a lot of pressure on them in overtime. We changed lines, came back with some fresh people, and they ended it."

Latrobe will play March 29 at the Cambria County War Memorial Arena in Johnstown, Pa., against the winner of the Class AA Flyers Cup championship game, which will be played Saturday at the Spectrum in Philadelphia.