Middle School Hockey Completes Banner Season

Submitted by Jim Femia:

The Marblehead Middle School Hockey Team recently completed their 2010-2011 campaign, coming up just one goal short of the Viking Middle School Hockey League Championship, losing to Beverly by the score of 2-1.

After starting the season at 3-2, Marblehead ripped off nine wins in their next ten games, good for second place with a record of 12-3. The Viking Middle School Hockey League was comprised of six northshore area teams and was hosted by Salem State College.

In semi-final playoff action, Marblehead matched up against third-place Peabody. Early in period one, winger Alex Delvento buried a James McCarthy rebound to givethe Headers a 1-0 lead. Later in the period, Payton Jancsy wristed home a pass from defenseman Cam McDonald to give Marblehead a 2-0 advantage.

Peabody got on the board early in the final period to cut the lead in half before Garret Keough knocked in are bound from Michael Femia and Colin Daly. Peabody wouldn’t go away, responding again midway through the final period to close the gap to 3-2. But once again, Keough converted a Femia rebound to finish the scoring at 4-2. Mitchell Uretsky played shutout goal tending in his half of play while Mark Scribner made several game-saving stops throughout the final period.

In the finals, Marblehead matched up against Beverly, first place finisher during the regular season. Earlier this year, Marblehead snapped Beverly’s two-season, 22 game unbeaten streak in a shoot out victory. The Headers jumped on top again as winger Keough banked a pass by a Beverly defender at his own blue line, found a streaking Jancsy through center ice, who then set up Daly crashing the net for a 1-0 lead. The Panthers then scored two goals in a one minute span at the end of the first period to grab a 2-1 lead.

Both teams exchanged chances in the second period before Marblehead really took the play to Beverly throughout most of the third. But unfortunately, the Headers were never able to net the equalizer, pulling their goalie in the game’s final minute but came up just one goal short. Once again, Marblehead got stellar goal tending by both Scribner and Will Fitzpatrick.

Successful teams can typically point to solid goal tending and a commitment to defense as a reason for their success. Throughout the season, Marblehead played stingy defense, limiting their opponents to fewer than 2.6 goals per game. The defense was led bythe consistent play of Cam McDonald, Nate Witherell, Dan Gienieczko, Max Trotsky,Connor Fallon, Christian Hennigar and Kyle Koopman.

Offensively, the Headers averaged almost 4.5 goals per game. The forward lines were comprised of Bryan Cohn, Ryan Jones, Sam Varsano, Michael Femia, Payton Jancsy,Owen Picariello, Matt Koopman, Will Slattery, Neal Murray, PJ Roy, Colin Daly, GarretKeough, Braden Haley, James McCarthy and Alex Delvento.