Ice hockey is back in full swing this week following a big holiday break for most teams.
Below find the schedule for Section 1 co-ed and girls-only games and Catholic league games, as well as game coverage and submitted results.
Saranac/Lake Placid 3, Section 1 North 2
S/LP
— Emma Clark: 2G. 1A
— Kendra Levitt: 1A
— Emii Colby: 1A
S1N
— Sascha Brightman: 1G
— River Salisbury: 1G
— Stella Quatrocci: 1A
— Lindsay Smith: 1A
MONSEY — Entering Friday’s game at Sport-O-Rama there was probably room for argument about what high school ice hockey team was truly the best in the local area.
By the end of the first period of Friday night’s game between Iona Prep and Suffern at Sport-O-Rama, that no longer seemed to be the case.
At the end of three periods, it was pretty much case closed.
Iona Prep, led by Billy Haggerty’s hat trick, Christian Hanna’s two goals and defense that gave up few high-quality chances, routed the host Mounties 7-2.
With the win, the Gaels, who are members of and play most of their games in the Catholic High School Athletic Association, improved to 12-3 on the season and solidified their hold on the No. 1 spot in The Journal News/lohud ice hockey rankings.
Suffern, which entered the game at No. 3, is now 4-2-1 but undefeated in Section 1 with its tie coming 0-0 with No. 2-ranked Pelham, which is not scheduled to play Iona Prep this season.
Haggerty, who’s committed to play lacrosse for Division I High Point University but has ice hockey in his DNA with both his dad and uncle former professional players, who were NHL draft picks, earned top game honors.
Haggerty scored his first two goals of the night and the game’s first two goals on similar shots from the right side just 41 seconds apart, midway through the first period.
Both were on the power play, as was his final goal, which came in the third period and was also the game’s final goal.
Until Haggerty’s initial scores, the game was pretty evenly matched.
Suffern starting goalie Tyler Grossman who finished with 21 saves, had three in the opening minutes. His counterpart, Chayce Turnbull, had a nice glove save and got lucky when a shot he was clearly screened on hit one of several bodies in front him and harmlessly caromed away.
But after Haggerty’s scores, Iona Prep tacked on two more first-period goals as Hanna scored on a breakaway and then scored again through traffic.
The sophomore Grossman started the second period strong, finding a puck through multiple players, but had zero chance when Liam Collins fed the puck from behind the goal line out front to a wide open Scott Alessy, who wasted no time in burying his shot.
Suffern got both its goals in the second period on the power play.
Sean Tyrell, who did a good job during the game carrying the puck deep, assisted on both.
On the first, he found Vincent Tinelli in close for the score to make it 5-1 with 13:34 left in the period.
Suffern scored a little more than three-and-a-half minutes later with two Gaels in the box.
Turnbull, who had made several strong saves in the preceding minutes, didn’t have much chance when Tyrell passed left to right to Nick Giammatteo for the goal.
Suffern had a great opportunity to get back into the game when Iona Prep took another penalty for another 5-on-3 with one penalty (a five-minute major for head contact) carrying over after Suffern’s initial score.
But Turnbull made several big stops — one a fine glove grab and another off a tough Giammatteo snap shot — to kill the penalties. He then made a big stop on Tynan Cosgrove at even strength.
When Liam Heffernan, on the left wing, made a perfect pass to Tom Caracappa in the slot for another Gael score, the game was essentially over with a period still to play.
Turnbull finished with 31 saves.
Connor Tyrell, who replaced Grossman with 5:49 left in the third period, had three saves on four shots, yielding Haggerty’s final goal.
“I think when we come out with energy, when we come out with fire, we can beat really any team in the area,” Haggerty said.
Iona Prep coach Mike Cambria also pointed to his team’s ability to kill the 5-on-3 after Suffern’s two goals, as key to the win.
“We had our backs against the wall and dug deep. Killing that was huge. It’s a big difference (being up) three goals and two goals,” he said, praising Turnbull’s play and calling him his team’s “backbone.
MONSEY — North Rockland left the ice earlier this season feeling that multiple things were wrong with its 4-1 loss to ETBE/New Ro.
The obvious one was it felt it didn’t play up to its ability and should have won.
But equally troubling was the fact any possibility of a comeback ended when officials called the game off with more than 11 minutes left in the third period due to a multiple-player brawl.
It didn’t help that North Rockland felt ETBE/New Ro not only started it, but also kept the fight going.
So, Friday afternoon on home ice at Sport-O-Rama, the Red Raiders were, if not seeing red, then playing on emotion-fueled adrenaline from the opening puck drop of their game vs. ETBE/New Ro.
That translated to a 2-0 first-period lead and eventual 6-3 win.
Granted, a couple of the Eagles’ top players were absent.
But whether that would have made a significant difference was unclear.
North Rockland did both little things and big things right.
Not long after the Eagles’ Alex Benveniste roofed a shot to cut North Rockland’s lead to 4-1 with 6:08 left in the second period, the Eagles went on a 5-on-3 power play.
But North Rockland killed it off with a phenomenal defensive effort that saw Noah Hilliard block two consecutive shots, Tommy Cahill block another, clear the puck down the ice past three ETBE/New Ro players and then do an incredible job keeping puck possession along the boards and against two Eagles as the time ran down on the final penalty until he finally cleared the puck out of the zone.
North Rockland also excelled throughout the game at not allowing many shots from the point. Hound-dogging ETBE/New Ro’s defensemen, it took the puck away from them several times, creating offensive chances the other way.
As its six goals showed, it was in high-gear offensively — virtually throughout the contest.
The Red Raiders dominated the first period and if not for some excellent saves by Eagle keeper JC DiNapoli, who played better than his stat line (16 saves, four goals allowed), would have had more than a 2-0 lead after one period. Included was a fine save on a 3-on-1 break and a great stop on Luke Hilliard, who came in alone.
Both teams are Journal News/lohud top-10-ranked teams and will remain so.
But North Rockland, 6-1-1, will probably get a lift from its strong play all over the ice and, particularly from its strong defensive effort.
ETBE/New Ro, now 7-2-1, will have almost a week to prepare for travel upstate to play Potsdam and Franklin Academy.
Noah Hilliard, a junior defenseman, took top game honors with his multiple blocks, multiple takeaways and diving deflections of passes around the high slot.
“He’s a player who fees off emotion. He was able to channel that tonight,” North Rockland coach Gary Dworkowitz said, crediting Hilliard with “intensity and intelligence” and noting he used his head for one block.
“I don’t think he realizes how good a player he can be,” Dworkowitz added.
Luke Hilliard led North Rockland with two goals, including its first with 5:05 left in the first period off a 1-on-0. His second was an empty-netter with 1.5 seconds to play.
Sean Madden, Cahill and Michael Maurer gave the Red Raiders their 4-0 cushion.
Madden’s goal came on a first-period penalty shot after he deked DiNapoli out of position with a forehand fake, then scored on his backhand.
Cahill’s goal came off a shorthanded breakaway and Maurer’s, which was on a power play, came off a rebound with Cahill and Hunter Stoll assisting.
Maurer had two assists, including on Vincent Parente’s third-period goal off a low, hard wrister.
Beneniste had two goals for the Eagles, his second off a Nathan Greenberg assist with 4:13 to play.
Sixty-one seconds later, Greenberg scored off assists from Beneniste and Jack Ray.
Noam Maliniak, who replaced DiNapoli in net to start the third period, had a couple of great saves from in tight and finished with 14 saves on 16 shots.
Chris Szwonder was solid for North Rockland throughout the game and finished with 23 saves.
“We knew we should have beat them in game one, so it just lit a fire under us and we came out more fired up for game two just to beat them,” Noah Hilliard said.
Asked about his squad at this juncture of the season, he added, “Our team chemistry is amazing right now.”
Horace Greeley/John Jay-Cross River 7, Byram Hills 4
HG/JJ-CR
— Brody Stogsdill: 3G, 2A
— Ryan Marcus: 2G
— Brendan Asta: 1G, 2A
— Freddie Gross: 1G
— Thomas Pollard: 2A
— Dylan Braun: 1A
BH
— Christian Cipriano: 1G, 1A
— Kai Licznerski: 1G, 1A
— Andrew Tymus: 2A
— Mark Dicintio: 1G
— Zach Yoon: 1G
Scarsdale 3, Amity Regional 1
Scarsdale 4, White Plains 2
Sc
— Jonathon Mullin: 1G, 1A
— Matt Kowalski: 2A
— Charley Wolf: 1G
— Daniel Kuyumjian: 1G
— Daniel Zhu: 1G
— Ryan Cambi: 1A
— Charlie Starr: 1A
— Buddy Meiselman: 24S
WP
— Lennon Stirling]: 1G
— Chris LaRosa: 1G
— Julian Bystricky: 1A
— Patrick Dooley: 1A
— Corbyn Pozo: 24S
Rye 2, Pelham 2
Rye
— Collin Nigro: 1G
— Ryan Draddy: 1G
— Trevor Dolan: 1A
— Fernando Monsquera: 20S
Pel
— Reeve Murrell: 1G, 1A
— Matthew Veteri: 1G, 1A
— Cam White: 23S
Iona Prep 10, Monsignor Farrell 0
IP
— Steven Spaziani: 2G, 1A
— Ryan Nates: 1G, 2A (First varsity goal)
— Will Leahy: 1G, 2A
—Thomas Caracappa: 1G, 2A
—Scott Alessy: 1G, 2A
— Christian Hanna: 1G, 1A
— Anthony Pappa: 1G
— Billy Haggerty 4A
— Liam Collins: 3A
— Logan Boera: 1A
— Justin Tortorella: 1A
— Aidan O’Sullivan: 10S
MF
— Matthew Benna: 36S
Girls: North Avalanche 2, Rye Country Day 2
— Hyde Hawkins: 1G, 1A
— Lucy Yoon: 1G
— Addison Pinnow: 1A
RCDS
— Summer Sisitskly: 1G
— Melody Wu: 1G
— Madelyn Segal: 1A
— Madison French: 1A
Rivertown 8 BYSNS 2
Riv
— Saxon Frank: 5G, 3A
— Aidan Balkin 1G 4A
— Jack Klatell: 1G, 3A
— Ryan Vicari :1G, 2A
— Luka Surguladze: 3A
— Killian O’Connor: 1A
— Richie Sullivan III: 24S
BYSNS
— James Munoz: 2G
— Lucas Salvatore: 2A
— Jordan Miller: 1A
— Patrick Vaughn: 28S
Pawling/Lourdes 6, Carmel 4
Paw
— Gunnar Lavoie: 3G, 2A
— Jacob Bischoff: 2G, 3A
— Logan Martucci: 1G
— Jake Geiger: 1A
— Tanner Waldorf- 1 a
— Chris Scrocca: 1A
— Kerry Hollywood: 18S
C
— Joseph Intravia: 3G, 1A
— Lucas Economou: 1G, 2A
— Casey Lowndes: 1A
— Joseph Lagan: 1A
— Everett Mcdonnell: 50S
Monday. Jan. 5
Mount Pleasant vs. Monroe-Woodbury at Ice Time Sports Complex, 4 p.m.
Girls: Hoboken High School vs. Rockland Rockies at Palisades Center Ice Rink, 8:05 p.m.
Tuesday, Jan. 6
Mamaroneck vs. Rye Town/Harrison at Playland Ice Casino, 8:45 p.m.
Wednesday, Jan. 7
Rivertown vs. Clarkstown at Palisades Center Ice Rink, 6:15 p.m.
Thursday, Jan. 8
Mamaroneck vs. Mount Pleasant at Westchester Skating Academy, 4 p.m.
Friday. Jan. 9
BYSNS vs. Mahopac at Brewster Ice Arena, 4 p.m.
Pelham vs. Mamaroneck at Hommocks Ice Arena, 5:30 p.m.
Queensbury vs. Clarkstown at Glens Falls Rec Center, 5:30 p.m.
Rye Town/Harrison vs. Rivertown at Westchester Skating Academy. 8:35 p.m.
Mark TYO tournament
At Massena Arena Ice Rink
Rye vs. Massena, 7:45 p.m.
Girls: TBD vs. North Avalanche at Brewster Ice Arena, 6:15 p.m.
Saranac Lake vs. East Green Wave at Hommocks Ice Arena, 7 p.m.
Saturday, Jan. 10
Adirondack vs. Clarkstown at Glens Falls Rec Center, 1:30 p.m.
Cortlandt vs. Carmel at Brewster Ice Arena, 4 p.m.
Fox Lane vs. BYSNS at Brewster Ice Arena, 6:15 p.m.
Clarkstown vs. North Rockland at Sport-O-Rama, 8:20 p.m.
Girls: SLP vs. North Avalanche at Brewster Ice Arena, 8 a.m.
Sunday, Jan. 11
Mount Pleasant vs. Horace Greeley/John Jay-Cross River at Brewster Ice Arena, 3:30 p.m.
Suffern vs. Bishop Hendricken at Sacred Heart University, 5:30 p.m.
BYSNS vs. Byram Hills at Brewster Ice Arena, 6:15 p.m.
Girls: North Avalanche vs. East Green Wave at Hommocks Ice Rink, 8:30 p.m.
Nancy Haggerty covers sports for The Journal News/lohud.
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