Summer Hockey Wrapping Up

 The Piney Orchard Ice Arena's summer adult hockey leagues are finishing their various seasons.           

Matchbox took the A League championship, wrapping it up last Sunday by clinching its best-of-three series with the Pirates.  The winners showed plenty of offense in the series by winning the first game, 10-6, and the second by a score of 12-9.           

Kevin Markey sparked the Matchbox offense with some key goals, and Matt Montgomery also helped out with the team's 22 overall goals.            

"We got some goals, but they just had too much offense for us in this series," said Pirates defenseman Gary Cremen.            

Chris Sams and J.L. Feeley gave the Pirates' offense some push, but they couldn't quite match the explosive Matchbox, who just kept scoring throughout the series.

The C2 league also concluded this past week as the Crush swept the Killer Whales in that best-of-3 series. There wasn't quite as much offense here, but the Crush pulled out victories of 5-3 and 6-5 to for a two-game sweep to take home that title. Steve Stestney and Scott Lewis played big roles on the Crush offense for the Crush while Neil Gwinn helped the Killer Whales. 

The other two Piney Orchard summer leagues are scheduled to finish their seasons in the next several days. The B League championship series between the Chesapeake Hitmen and the Flying Aces is tied at a game apiece. The finale of that best-of-3 series is set for Wednesday at 10:10 p.m.

The C1 title series begins Tuesday night at 10:10 p.m. when the Clippers and Anne Arundel Pickheads meet.            

There will not be much of a break between the summer and fall leagues because fall competition is set to begin next week. Teams will play once a week through the fall and winter and into the early part of the spring.