BY RANDY SCHULTZ
Buffalo, NY — Three champions were crowned at the 2016 Super Sunday High School Club Hockey Championships held at First Niagara Center. But it took three overtimes to crown the first, one OT to crown the second and a normal three period contest to establish the third.
In the Small Division Depew edged Starpoint, 3-2 in three OT period. In the Large Division St. Joe’s Maroon topped Orchard Park, 3-2 but it took an extra OT period to do it. In the final game of the afternoon Olean defeated Iroquois, 6-3 to win the Mixed Division.
Nick Grupp scored the game winning goal just 93 seconds into the third OT, which saw the two teams skating 3-on-3. It was Grupp’s second goal of the game.
Grupp and Bob Staniszewski had scored first period goals to give Depew an early, 2-0 lead. But Starpoint stormed back to tie the game in the second stanza with goals by Pat Miklinski.
Morgan von Hedeman was solid in goal for Starpoint, as was Adam Bauer for Depew.
Miklinski was Game MVP for Starpoint while Grupp was the Game MVP for Depew.
In the second game Orchard Park got off to a quick 2-0 lead in the first period on goals by Cam Peters and Marshall Cappelli. But St. Joe’s chipped away at that lead with David Mathew scoring a goal in the second period and Robert Robinson popping in the game tying goal in the third.
Andrew Short fired in the game winner for St. Joe’s with less than 31 seconds remaining in the first OT. Short was Game MVP for the winners, while Peters was MVP for Orchard Park.
In the final game of the day the final score did not tell the whole story. Olean jumped out to a first-period, 4-0 lead on goals by Jack Pecora, Chris Byrne, Nathan Paar and Zane Porterfield.
But Iroquois came right back in the second period on goals by Gage Mueller, Garrett Miller and Alex Held to tighten the score to 4-3. The score remained the same until mid-way through the third period when Paar scored his second goal of the game to give Olean a 5-3 lead.
Porterfield added his second goal of the game with an empty-net goal in the closing seconds to make the final, 6-3 and give Depew the win. Paar was Game MVP for Depew while Held was MVP for Iroquois.
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