Prep Talk

Here's a link to today's Federation hockey story, but we've got a lot of additional information here.

Here's a link to this season's day-by-day schedule (which has a permanent home at our high school home page).

Some games to watch this week at the Amherst Pepsi Center include those involving Kenmore schools. Kenmore East takes on Sweet Home on Thursday at 9 p.m. and battles Williamsville South at Saturday at 5 p.m. On the adjacent rink on Thursday, Kenmore West meets Canisius in a 9 p.m. faceoff.

The Canisius-St. Joe's showdown in the Federation's Division II is one of nine Fed games being held on MLK Day (Monday) across Western New York.

Williamsville North's Bob Rosen learned very quickly that his young team was ready to play. The Spartans opened the season at a tournament in Utica (annual site of the state championships, by the
way) and won it by beating Albany power Shenenedehowa and Rochester power McQuaid.

"The first game was against Shenenedehowa and we were losing going into the third, but we came out and really outplayed them with five goals in the third to beat them, 7-3," said Rosen. "The next day we had a real gritty game against McQuaid and won, 4-2. The whole road trip, the bonding that went on, everything -- we knew we were in for some good stuff."

The only loss for St. Joe's was to defending Rhode Island Division 1 state champion Mount St. Charles Academy (by a 4-1 score) in that team's annual holiday tournament in Providence.

In 13 of the Marauders' 15 games, they've either recorded a shutout (seven) or allowed just one goal (six).

Offensively, St. Joe's is led by senior Cory Dawson (seven goals) and sophomores Alex Bonito (eight) and Dave Seward (six).

A big part of why Canisius has joined North and St. Joe's among the league's undefeateds has been the penalty-killing work by Brendon Sorrento, Frank Polino, Brian Raab and Paul Steing.

First-year program West Seneca West and coach Kevin Rozo have lost close ones to St. Joe's (2-1) and Canisius (3-2). Scoring contributors include Mike Deppeler (six goals, seven assists) and captain Tony Marchitte (eight goals, six assists).

Clarence, in its second Federation season, has had to deal with the loss of 16 players from last year's roster.

Coach Rick Brooks called returning junior goalie Harrison Civin (1.87 GAA, .923 save percentage) "a workhorse" while crediting defensive leaders senior captain Greg Molfese and juniors Tim Godin and Jake Ledyard.

Junior Reid Zaccagnino leads the team in scoring with seven goals and three assists.

Division I leader Orchard Park's breakthrough season has been aided by great two-way defensemen in seniors Josh Gura and Art Marapese and junior Bryan McParlane (24 combined points) while senior goalie Dennis Elsenbeck has played in every game but one for coach Derek Gilham.

Frontier and OP might be setting up a football-like rivalry in the rink as the Falcons are off to an 8-5 start overall and 5-3 in league play.

Great two-way play from forward Ryan Damstetter (two of his eight goals are short-handed) and scoring from Josh Baker (15 goals) has led the way up front. Seniors Connor Ventura (eight points, plus-10) and Chris Burke (plus-6) have made the most of their loads of ice time on defense in front of junior goalie Nick Tuttle (2.72 GAA, .910 save pct.).

Lancaster is right in the middle of the race thanks to players like forwards Nick Berst, Justin Hussar, and P.J. Brown and defensemen Jarrett McGraw, Andrew Sherwood and Josh Gramza.

Kenmore West has five one-goal losses in its 5-8-1 record, with senior goalie Nick Fyvie helping lead the team with 152 saves on the season along with a 1.77 GAA and .894 save percentage.

Leading up front have been junior Rob Mooney (10 points), senior Jesse Shaw (eight) and senior Darroch Moorhead (eight) while senior captain Christian Panepinto (five) has anchored the defensive pairings.

Hamburg coach John McFall says, "our month of December was one to remember." The first-year Bulldogs went undefeated with wins over Williamsville East, Kenmore East and Sweet Home.

Senior captains Matt Springer -- who is also a standout lacrosse player -- and Steve Milley have been excellent on defense to help lead the Bulldogs, which was the Southtowns Club champion last season with a victory over West Seneca East on Super Sunday.

With both teams moving to Federation this year, the rivalry has continued, with Hamburg winning twice, including a 3-0 win over the weekend in which senior goalie Ryan Tilley had 19 saves.

Junior forward Sean Gregoire has jumped from the club-level JV team last year to this year's Federation team and is leading the squad in scoring with 11 points and is tied for the lead in goals with five -- two of those were third-period game-winners. Other offensive contributors include senior Michael Sage, junior Ryan Feuerstein (another lacrosse player) and sophomore St. Francis transfer Nate Dake, all of whom have five goals.

Kenmore East has a 6-1 record in the Federation's small schools league (Division III), is ranked sixth in the state's small school poll and is 10-2 overall after repeating as champions of the Geneseo Tournament this weekend.

The outstanding line of senior Brett Rogers, junior Mark Arnone and sophomore Chris Chapin (pictured in that order, left to right) has the kind of chemistry that has filled up the stat sheet for the Bulldogs. Arnone (11 goals) and Rogers (nine goals) both have 24 points while Chapin (seven goals) has 22.

East's goaltending has been top-notch also as P.J. Bluff has a 2.17 GAA in the Fed and a
1.77 GAA overall in nine games.

Williamsville South (9-6-1, 6-3-1) and coach Sean Green has won five straight league games and is coming off a finals appearance at the Skaneateles Tournament, where the Billies lost to McQuaid.

Senior goalie Eric Winnert leads the way with a .923 save percentage and 1.72 goals against average, while the team's top scorers are juniors Darren Powers, Leo Schultz and Trevor Clark -- all of whom have 12 points.

The Billies have been the recipients of the Federation's Ralph Galanti Sportsmanship Award three of the last four years.

Sweet Home is led by seniors and three-year players Chris Covel, Dominic Puntillo and Ryan Gutt. Coach Dave Gerspach said "all have an outstanding work ethic and playmaking ability, they lead in all offensive and defensive categories."

Junior Pat McMahon provides the Panthers with physical play and scoring while senior defensemen Ricky Brooks and Cameron Hollander have been strong on the blue line. Gerspach also credited sophomores Mike Puntillo and Matt Beaudet with "tough, smart hockey" while sophomore Adam Titanic "is coming into his own and has become a force to be reckoned with."

West Seneca East has a 5-2 mark over its last seven games thanks to strong goaltending by senior Paul Wojcik. The team's top point-getters are senior Kyle Chase and juniors Brian Osieja and Ryan Struzik.

Traditionally strong Williamsville East has only four seniors this season. Captain Eric Esposito and linemate Joey Cantafio have been leaders up front, as have been Matt Notaro and James Faran. Max Fogel and Donny Frauenhofer have helped control the defensive end.

Amherst first-year coach Mark Mobus -- who replaced Crozier when he went to St. Joe's -- and the Tigers are already off to a better Federation season than last year, having started 1-4-1 after going 0-13-1 last season. Amherst has also been competitive in many more games this season (largest goal differential has been three).

Junior goalie Sean Smith is the team leader with one shutout, 148 saves a GAA of 2.18 and a .919 save percentage. Senior defensemen, captain and three-year player Kevin Denny plays on the first power play and penalty kill unit. Defensemen T.J. Kaszubski is the team's power play quarterback despite being a freshman. Senior Stephen Mugel and and junior David Rubach are the top forwards.

Nichols is a school which has its top varsity team in a prep school league and is finding its first season in Federation play (0-11) a bit of a struggle so far. St. Francis, which has a prep team, had similar struggles when it joined the league a few years ago.

Said coach J. Tim Vanini: "We have 15 freshmen on the team this year. They are learning about the league, and what it means to come to rink prepared both mentally and physically everyday. We have been getting better as the season has progressed.

"A solid core of players is at the focal point: Peter Borgesi is doing an outstanding job in goal; Brad Bourne, Sean Hughes, Thaddeus Kucharski and Brandon Kaczmarz on defense; and Lucas Walsh, Tom Mediak and Michael Gates at forward."

Another place for info is the league's own Web site -- which changed from a dot-come to a dot-org this year if you need to update those bookmarks like I did.

Every team that supplied info to us is now accounted for on this blog. As we discovered with providing more info on the Web for the boys basketball preview, while there is no limit to space on the Web, there are only so many hours in the day to put it all together.

So how do you think the league is shaping up this season? Surprised at some of the rookie teams' solid performances? Do you think the young teams at Williamsville North and St. Joe's can continue their success?

---Keith McShea