Photos and Story by Janet Schultz
(Photo: Jenna Woods scores first 2017-18 goal)
The Western New York Girls Varsity Ice Hockey League opened their 8th season with West Seneca/Hamburg/Eden at Williamsville at Buffalo’s Riverworks Arena. After just four games in the first week, we can safely say that it will be a goalies year and that once again, we cannot predict which team will take home the hardware in February.
The first penalty of the season came at 5:58 with body checking by WSHE’s Maddy Jurusik The first period ended 0-0.
With 6:33 remaining on the clock in the second Williamsville’s Jenna Woods scored, assisted by Holly Schmelzer. Woods goes into the records as the first goal of the season. That ended the second period 1-0 in favor of Williamsville.
With more action in the third it was the evening of the Jenna’s with Jenna Cavalieri scoring Williamsville’s second goal and ending the third period 2-0. She was assisted by Samantha Ingham and Elizabeth Jackson. In goal for Williamsville was Jenna Lukomski and for WSHE Lauryn Brown.
Game on of the 8th season was in the record books.
On Tuesday night it was Monsignor Martin, now coached by Chris Malicki, 5-2 over Lancaster/Iroquois/Depew. Scoring for MM were Emily Matthew; Gracee Donovan with 2; Kayla Blas and Alexa Groh. Donovan, and Groh are freshmen. Scoring for LID were Szefler, and Moran. (Waiting for a roster from LID). Grace Harrington had 17 saves for MM and Gorski has 35 saves for LID.
Williamsvllle played Clarence/Amherst/SweetHome in the second game of the Tuesday night triple header. Emma Faso dropped in a shorthanded goal putting CASH up 1-0 over Williamsville until Elizabeth Sidorski scored for Williamsville and ended the first period in a 1-1 tie. The second period opened with Faso scoring a shorthanded goal for CASH and then she dropped another in at 13:02 of the third for a 3-1 win over Williamsville. CASH’s goalie faced 29 sog and Williamsville’s Rose Quattro faced 35. Faso scored the first hat trick of the season!
The final game of the night, and for the opening week, found Frontier/LakeShore/Orchard Park facing off against Kenmore/Grand Island. The first period went scoreless and then in the second Kenmore/Grand Island’s Nina Stockman scored at 10:40 and ending the second with a 1-0 lead. That all changed in the third period when FLOP scored three goals, the first 14 seconds into the period by Mary Kromer. That was followed at 2:26 with a goal by Brooke Becker and then the final goal of the night at 12:38 by Becker. In goal for FLOP was Tori Cottrell and for Kenmore/Grand Island, Ellie Simmons.
After the first week Emma Faso leads in points with 3 goals for 3 points followed by Gracee Donovan with 2 assists; Alyssa Piazza, 2 assists, Emily Kromer 2 assists and Brooke Becker with 2 goals. Goalie Jenna Lukomski tops the Goaltender stats with a shutout win.
(All photos available by contacting Janet at [email protected]
