by Janet Schultz, NYHOL
The weather won this week with two games postponed. First St. Mary’s of Lancaster’s game against Niagara County at Riverworks was postponed; that date will be announced. The Niagara County vs Kenmore/Grand Island game that was to be held on January 18 has been rescheduled for January 25 at 7:50 p.m. at Lincoln Arena. Then history was made when Northtown Arena double booked and the LID/Williamsville matchup had to be rescheduled for January 25 at 4 p.m. at Northtowns.
The League is getting down to the wire as far as season and with that has come some movement in the standings. With significant wins Frontier/Lakeshore/Orchard Park has moved into first place overall with a 10-1-2 record and 33 points. Close behind with some key games coming is KGI with 30.5 points on a 9-3-1-1OTL record. Monsignor Martin now sits in third place overall with 28 points and Williamsville just one point behind sitting in fourth overall and third in the Section. However with Niagara County scheduled for some games against those teams they could move up from their 24 points and fifth place overall.
The bottom half of the standings put Clarence/Amherst/SweetHome in sixth followed by LID, Hamburg/Eden/West Seneca and St. Mary’s of Lancaster. The juggle there will be between LID and HEWS who both have 9.5 points but could move up and take over CASH with some wins.
How did this come about on a shortened week of hockey?
CASH beat St. Mary’s 4-2 on Tuesday night. Jenny Wild had the game winning goal unassisted, along with another unassisted goal. Allison Greene and Isabella Zivis dropped in the other two. For St. Mary’s it was an unassisted goal from Teddie Osinski and the second goal from Elle Yuhas, assisted by Alanna Pagano. CASH’s Natalie Zwelling stopped 13/15 sog and Avery Hall stopped 20 of 24.
FLOP headed to Cheektowaga on Wednesday for a game against St. Marys. It was a 7-0 shutout for Kerrigan McCarthy who stopped all 11 sog. Taylor Joyce had a hattrick, Joyceelyn Smaczniak had two powerplay goals and Mya Dalton and Breanna Bovo dropped in the other two goals. Maya Griffin had three assists, Taylor Loretto had three assists, Emily Patton, 2 assists and Samantha Torgerson the other assist.
Avery Hall continued making saves for St. Mary’s stopping 31 of 38.
Over at West Seneca it was Williamsville 8, HEWS 3. Diana Martucci got on the boards on a powerplay goal, assisted by Sophia DePrime and Vanessa Willick. It was Allison Besancon with two goal, Aizah-Roze Thompson with two, and Alexandra Hennessy with two. Thompson had the game winner, assisted by Besancon and Willick, who had three other assists that evening. Other assists came from Gianna DeFlippo, Besancon, Martucci and Molly Martin. Katherine Kelley stopped 10 of 13 sog.
For HEWS it was Katie Mruk, assisted by Riley Andzel; Andzel an unassisted goal and Jackie Supples, assist from Allison Regian. Leia Schneid stopped 26 of 34.
It was Senior Night for CASH on Thursday, but it was a unfortunately a losing night for them and a record for HEWS Goalie Schneid who had her first shutout of the season, stopping all 17 shots-on-goal. Contributing to the 4-0 victory for HEWS was Elizabeth O’Brien, Morgan Cooper, Regian and Mruk. Assisting on goals were Supples, Hanna Barrett, Kayla O’Donnell and Kayla Pelc. The Cooper goal was unassisted.
CASH’s goal duties were split with Ella Celej stopping 17 of 19 and Kylie Paige stopping 15 of 17.
The “game-of-the-night” looking at standings had FLOP beating Williamsville 3-1. The game-winner coming from Dalton, assisted by Griffin and Lauren Draszkiewicz. Kathleen Dougherty had a powerplay goal, assisted by Joyce and Griffin had the final goal for FLOP, assisted by Smaczniak.
DePrima had the only goal for Williamsville, assisted by Martin and Willick.
Niagara County traveled to North Buffalo to take on Monsignor Martin. MonMar came up with a 4-1 victory as Camryn Brownschidle continued her scoring with a powerplay goal, an unassistede goal and two assists on the evening. Grace Russo also had a power play goal, assisted by Mia Boyd and Brownschidle with Alexandria Franke having a goal, also assisted by Brownschidle.
For NiCo it was Madelyn Jagow on an assist from Kayla Persinger and Sam Latini. In goal Mariela Mulready stopped 15 of 18 shots and Sophia Will made 32 saves on 33 shots.
KGI and LID held a scrimmage at Holiday Twin after LID celebrated Senior Night.
With her scoring this week Aziah-Roze Thompson heads the leaderboard with 23 points on 17 goals and 6 assists. However Brownschidle continues scoring and assisting with 13 goals and 9 assists for 22 points. The race will be on as we come down to the end of the season. Closely behind both of them are Greene with 21 points; Persinger and Isabella Jayme with 20 points each.
The WNYGVIH story of goaltending seems to be what paces this league at any given time. HEWS Leia Schneid leads the goaltenders with minutes played at 632.83.
Kerrigan McCarthy (FLOP) leads the goaltenders with a 10-1-2 record and three shutouts. She has a .949 save percentage and a 1.06 gaa. Katherine Kelley at Williamsville has 9 wins.
Sophia Will of MonMar also has a .949 save percentage and three shutouts.
Over at KGI Carolyn Bourgeault has recorded four shutouts this season.
Looking at records, Willick (Williamsville) has 87 points, three away from the League Leaderboard. She has played in 64 games in four years and has 42 goals and 45 assists for 87 points.
Greene is another one to watch with 73 games played and 49 goals and 29 assists for 78 points.
As the league moves into his final week of regular season play, with one or possible two additional games the following week we have the following scheduled.
Monday, January 24: St. Marys at Williamsville at 4 p.m.; FLOP at Niagara County at 4:30 pm and CASH at LID at Riverworks at 5:30 p.m.
Tuesday, January 25: LID faces off against Williamsville at 4 p.m. at Northtowns; Niagara County vs KGI at Lincoln at 7:50 p.m. and MonMar will play FLOP at Cornerstone Arena in Lockport at 8 p.m.
Wednesday, January 26 will be St. Mary’s at HEWS at 4 p.m. in West Seneca.
Thursday, January 27: Niagara County at LID, 4:15 p.m.; CASH at Williamsville, 4:30 p.m.; HEWS at MonMar, 4:30 p.m. and KGI at FLOP, 4:30 p.m. It will be Senior Night for Williamsville and MonMar.
The final game of the regular season will be St. Mary’s vs MonMar on Monday, January 31 at 4 p.m. in Cheektowaga. This is a rescheduled game.
Section VI Quarterfinals will be played February 1 and Semi-Finals on February 3. All games will be held at the Amherst Northtown Center beginning at 4:30 p.m.
The first-ever Private School Championship will be played at Cornerstone Arena in Lockport at 6 p.m. on February 7. That will be followed by the Section VI Championship at 8 p.m.
The winner of the Section VI Championship game will travel to the NYSPHSAA finals at SUNY Canton February 11 and 12.
(For those of you wondering about Senior Night photos, NYHOL will have a feature story on seniors with photos once all the Senior Nights have been celebrated.)
(All photos are copyrighted by Janet Schultz NYHOL. Copies, printed and/or digital are available for purchase by contacting [email protected]. Prices are $15 for 8x 10s; $10 5x7s and $3.00 for 4×6. Copyright infringement occurs if taken from this site and used or printed.)
