Photos and Story by Janet Schultz, NYHOL©
The WNYGVIH Federation season came to an end last week with Monsignor Martin taking the Private School Chanmpionship and KENGIPort winning the Section VI Championship.
The road ends here for MMAA but KENGIPort headed off the to NY State Regional Championships (named that because not all Sections are represented).
Prior to the start of the second game, the Referees Association awarded Lancaster/Iroquois/Alden the 2023 Sportsmanship Award and the James Rusin Award went to LIDA assistant coach Pete Tonsoline.
First up Monsignor Martin took on St. Mary’s of Lancaster and with no goals scored in the first period, and opening second with St. Mary’s getting a penalty, MMAA’s Isabella Fedele dropped one in on the powerplay, assisted by the Honadle sisters. Third period it was only MMAA that scored and once again it was a goal by Reece Honadle, assisted by Sister Ryann. It was a 2-0 shutout for MMAA. Game MVP Kate Kelley stopped all 20 sog and Avery Hall stopped 24 of 26.
If you recall these two teams opened the 2022-23 season at St. Mary’s with St. Mary’s coming away with a 4-3 overtime victory. The game-winner scored by Gabrielle Lowell, unassisted.
KENGIPort hit the ice hard against Niagara County and immediately scored two quick goals in the first period. The first by Isabella Jayme, assisted by Madison Flory and the second by Emiliana Cassillo on a powerplay, assisted by Flory. First ends 2-0. It stays that way in the second, which had more penalities than goals scored in the evening. In the third Jayme put in her second goal of the evening, assisted by Isabelle Bourgeault. Niagara County’s goalie went down and in came Mariela Mulready to finish out the game. KENGIPORT sealed the win with a fourth goal on the powerplay by Riley Marrale, assisted by Bourgeault and Cassillo. Carolyn Bourgeault stopped 19/19 for the shut-out win and Kennedy Ruest stopped 18/21 before injured and Mulready stopped 4/5. It was a 4-0 shutout.
This was Kenmore’s seventh Section VI title in 13 years with Jeff Orlowski as head coach since season one. KENGIport goes on to the States to face Clinton in the semi-finals.
A few year-end notes:
Goalie Ella Buczynski, HEWSH, an 8th grader, is on top of the goalie list playing 824.20 minutes (almost 18 complete games), stopped 327 of 361 shots-on-goal; had a .906 save percentage; 1.86 GAA and a 12-5-1 record with 5 shutouts.
Goalie Anna Meyer was a volunteer goalie when Williamsville had no goalies turn out for try-outs. She missed one game due to illness and compiled a 10-6-1 record with two shutouts and played 763.12 minutes. Meyer was awarded the first-ever WNYGVIH Sportsmanship Award.
The Season Ended In League Play: (MMAA and St. Mary’s is removed from Section VI play)
1- Kenmore/Grand Island/Lockport with a 15-1 record
2- Niagara County, 12-4
3- Hamburg/Eden/West Seneca/Holland 11-3-1-0-1
4- Williamsville 8-6-1-1-0
5- Lancaster/Iroquois/Depew/Alden 7-8-0-1-0
6- Frontier/LakeShore/Orchard Park/Franklinville 7-8-1-0-0
7- Monsignor Martin 2-11-1-0-2
8- St Mary’s of Lancaster 2-12-0-1-1
9- Clarence/Amherst/SweetHome 2-13-0-1-0
Sydney Radecki, LIDA, tops the Points Chart with 32 goals and 8 assists for 40 points.
Madison Flory KGIP, had 19 goals, 21 assists for 40 points
Riley Andzel, HEWSH, 28 goals/ 10 assists/ 38 points. Riley also played 72 varsity games with HEWSH; had 60 goals and 22 assists for 82 points in her career.
Isabelle Bourgeault, KGIP, 12 goals / 26 assists / 38 points
Isabella Jayme, KGIP, 18 goals/ 16 assists/ 34 points
Goalie Carolyn Bourgeault, KGIP, played 627.04 minutes with a 10-1 record and 7 shutouts.
LIDA’s Carly Irzycki played 683.48 minutes with a 7-7 record, one shutout
Kerrigan McCarthy, FFLOP, had 571.72 minutes and a 5-7 record.
Coaches Jeff Orlowski and Rick Hopkins are the only two coaches remaining from the first year of the Federation.
We welcomed coaches Bri Colucci and Cass MacPherson to the bench at St Mary’s of Lancaster, along with Head Coach Marty Gilano. Colucci is a former WNYGVIH player and MacPherson currently plays for the Buffalo Beauts.
The 2022-23 season also welcomed to the league Alden High School to LID; Franklinville to FLOP, Lockport to KENGI and Holland to HEWS.
The State welcomed a team into Section 2 with Adirondack United and Section 1, the East Green Wave will be taking part in the State’s as well.
NYHOL congratulations everyone on a wonderful, exciting season. We had everything this season with a couple high scoring games, lots of tight games, some penalty-ridden games and several hat tricks and first-goals for rookies. Also the longest game in Federation history with NICO beating HEWSH 2-1 after three overtimes and a penalty shot in the third overtime.
So how to we top this in 2023-24?
(Keep following NY Hockey Online all summer as we post upcoming news about anything hockey in New York State, plus a few throw-backs. We will also have news about NY Hockey Online’s vision for our publication next season. As always if you need copies (print or digital) of photos taken by Staff Photographer and Writer, Janet Schutz, just email [email protected]. We thank you all for your support!)
A Note on Photos: Somehow we maxed out the number we could put in our Library. So Janet has more and hopefully get them up at a later date. Also these will be available for purchase through Smug Mug shortly.
