hockey

Notre Dame goaltender Tom Dehr makes a save as defensment  Luke Calla battles with a Kenmore forward. Below: ND's Josh Halle lays a hit on Kenmore's Tommy Ryan.- Photos by Bare Antalos for TheBatavian

"We're going to be good this year" said Notre Dame head coach Marc Staley.

The player's supported his statement in the first game as Notre Dame lead 5-0 at one point and easily defeated the visiting Kenmore Devils from Section 6 by a final score of 5-2.

Senior Dylan Versage recorded Notre Dame's first goal of the season off a pass from Zac Blew and Josh Johnston. Just a few minutes later Jack Nenni added their second goal off a nicely set up play by Tyler Kessler and Beau Richter.

Kenmore's top offensive line of Billy Moore, Rob Seiler and Mike Coyen responded with scoring chances but Notre Dame's goaltender Tom Dehr denied them the chance to capitalize.

Blew and Versage then helped put the team up by three as they set up Johnston for his first goal of the season.

The scoring didn't stop their as Luke Calla recorded the fourth score for the Irish off a deflection from Brennan Brown. Nenni then recorded his second goal of the night to cap off the scoring for the Irish. Defensemen Brett Perfitt and Richter were credited with the assists on the play.

Kenmore's top line finally was able to beat Dehr in the third period but it was too little too late. Coyne and Moore each had a goal and assist while Seiler added two assists.

The Irish (1-0) are scheduled to host Geneseo/ Livonia next Tuesday at the Falleti Ice Arena.

Batavia opened their 2010-2011 season by facing off against the Churchville Saints at the Blue Cross Arena in Rochester for the Section V Hockey Showcase. After two defensive lapses and two breakaway goals, Batavia found themselves down 3-0 early in the game, but wouldn't back off. Tim Finnell scored the Devils first goal of the season, as he deflected a shot by Josh Marr to put Batavia within two. Marr then rallied to close the lead to 3-2 as he snuck a puck under the pads of Churchville goaltender Dylan Niewiemski.

After the 2nd period intermission, the Devils came out down just one goal, but collapsed as Churchville added four more goals. Josh Marr scored his second goal in the third to end the score at 7-3.

Shawn Easton scored three goals for Churchville, while Tyler MacMillian added a pair and an assist. Anthony Bertolani also added a goal and assist for the Saints.

 Adam Kurek made the start for Batavia and recorded 15 saves. Niewiemski had 20 saves for Churchville (1-0). Batavia falls to 0-1 and will travel to face Aquinas on Wednesday.

The tournament started off just like every tournament does; with a face off, but the first face off came with a different type of emotion than usual. It was emotions as a result of honoring two former hockey players of the Genesee Amatuer Hockey Association that had their lives ended at young ages. GAHA hosted the Tim Reis/ Matt Kota (TRMK) Memorial Hockey Tournament to remember these players and they started things off with a ceremonial puck drop in their honor.

The center of the ice was filled with people that were close to the two former players. Lining up for Matt Kota were his parents, Jason and Nancy and his siblings, Sean, Tyler and Sara. Matthew passed during September 2008 at the age of 17 from complications brain surgery related to a large AVM (arterio-venous Brain malformation, which is a condition that happens to only 0.01% of the population. Long time friend and former coach, Tom Cervone led the line for Tim Reis that included former teamates that he had played with in the past. Tim had his life taken in a house fire in Byron, along with his mother and two sisters in May 2008. Reis was killed while trying to help his family escape.

While they lined up, in his honor, GAHA president Gerry Wolcott read a passage to remember the two young men.

For Tim he read "Through the dedication of individuals in the organization, Tim was able to play a game he truly enjoyed. Tim was a giver when you got to know him and nowhere was that more evident than on the ice. He always tried his best for his team and when losses came he just accepted them and tried harder. Even in Tim’s last moments, he was giving he was trying to help his Mom and sisters escape the fire that ultimately claimed them all. Every time a player puts on a Ramparts jersey we remember how Tim showed us what being a team player was all about , his spirit is still with us and his teammates every time they take the ice."

He continued for Matthew and stated "Matt was always helping his team anyway he could and even with all his other interest like cross country and advanced courses in school he even took the time to help with his sister and brother’s teams any way he could. On the night before he was to leave for surgery he spent it working with his youth group in their outreach ministries to the needy. After God decided he needed Matt in heaven matt even donated what he no longer would need from his physical body so that at least 7 other families could have a better life or life at all. Matt’s spirit shine brightly with us still and he taught us what a difference one person can make if they cared about others first."

After a moment of silence from the arena, he closed in asking that we all "enjoy life like they did".

This weekend is a weekend full of state championships in New York and the Batavia High School Blue Devils are not the only team that will have the chance to compete for a state title. Genesee Amatuer Hockey Associaton (GAHA) will be host to the 16-U New York State Championships for USA hockey will be held at the Falleti Ice Arena in an eight team tournament to decide who is the best of the best this season. Teams have traveled from all over including Alex Bay, Louisville, Saranac Lake, Bear Mountain and Center State. These teams all finished within the top 2 seeds of the divisions that they played in throughout the season, with Louisville being a favorite to take the title. "There are a lot of good teams coming here this weekend and it's gonna be some good hockey" said tournament director Tom Aldinger. "Anything can happen in a tournament like this".

Since Batavia was awarded the bid to host the tournament, the 16-U Ramparts team, who did not qualify for states this season based on their record, will receive a free entry into the tournament and a chance to prove that they are the best in the state. Two other Western New York  teams, Jamestown and Niagara will also be competing in the tournament.

Batavia is set to play thier first game today (Friday) at 1:00pm against Saranac Lake. The rest of their schedule includes playing Jamestown tomorrow morning at 8:00am and Bear Mountain tomorrow at 4:00pm.

The tournament has games from 9am-9pm today and 8am-8pm tomorrow. Sunday is set for the semi final games at 11am and 1pm with the NYS championship game set for 5pm Sunday night. Admission to the games is only $5 per game or you can get a weekend pass to all the games for only $10. TF Brown's is a partial sponsor of the tournament.

It was a battle of the Devils on Wednesday night at the Tuttle Ice Arena at SUNY Brockport, where Victor came up victorious 3-0 and earned a trip to the Section V Class B high school hockey finals.

Victor's Zeb Clarke recorded 20 saves to earn the shutout. Adam Kurek made 22 saves for Batavia.

6th seeded Batavia, who finished the season at 10-10-1, had lost twice to 2nd seeded Victor (14-4-2-1) in league play this season.

Batavia ended the season and will lose three seniors to graduation, Will Mulcahy, Corey Kocent and Rob Henning.

Victor will play the 1st seeded Webster Thomas in the finals on Sunday at the Tuttle Ice Arena. Thomas who is currently ranked #1 in the state, has not allowed a goal in the first two games of sectionals as they defeteaded Geneva/Waterloo 9-0 and Spencerport 5-0.

The Fighting Irish (11-3) came out with a plan to do what they have been doing best all season; win, and that's just what they did as they defeated Geneva 4-2.

Coming off a loss last game against Victor, the Irish wanted to get right back on track and Jason Harasimowicz lead the offense  early by putting them on the scoreboard just 1:38 into the game on a one timer off a pass from Ivan Madafferi and Phil Vigneri. Madaferri followed up on his own rebound to score the second goal. Harasimowicz was credited with the assist.

The Irish kept the pressure coming throughout the period and were able to force Geneva's Alex Fitzgerald to take a hooking penalty. Tyler Kessler and Kyle Gannon took advantage of the powerplay and set up Jack Nenni for their third goal with 4:13 remaining in the period.

The third period scoring didn't stop there as Sean Kota and Josh Halle set up Phil Vigneri to cap of the scoring for the Irish, all in the first period.

Geneva came out strong in the second period but only managed to get one goal on the board. Eirik Velta scored off an assist from Emil Siedberg for the Panthers' first goal.

The Panthers had a plan to engineer a comeback as they came out hard in the third and Emil Siedberg posted an early goal to close the gap to 4-2. Notre Dame goaltender Tom Dehr had planned to keep the win secure and he did just that as he finished the game by stopping 17 shots on the day. Zach Koczent made 28 saves for the Panthers (3-8-1).

It was a day of hard fought efforts for two Ramparts teams that got a shot at the championship game of the Batavia New Year's Eve Classic Tournament that was hosted at the Falleti Ice Arena.

ROCHESTER: 5  / BATAVIA: 4-----The Bantam travel team started out the day of championships facing off against the Rochester Youth Americans. Looking for revenge as the Amerks had defeated them just a day earlier, the Ramparts took the early lead online to find themselves in a in a scoring battle, being answered back right after they scored all their goals.

 Parker Brinkworth was one of the Ramparts that had a big day. He started off the scoring with an early goal off of a set up from Mason Versage. He then followed up and assisted on goals by Zack Laird and Evan Eckerson. Brandon Holley scored Batavia's last goal off of an assist by Nate Palmer and Sean Olin. Joe Ryan ended the game with an assist as well.

ROCHESTER: 1  / BATAVIA: 0----- The PeeWee travel team came out with a long fought effort against the Rochester Grizzlies. Ramparts goalie Matthew Anauo stopped 16 shots and looked like he was going to put the game into overtime as he stopped all the shots he faced up until 1:00 left in the game. The Grizzlies beat a defender on the blue line and fired a shot by Anauo to give the Grizzlies the last minute goal and the 1-0 victory. The Ramparts had 6 shots on goal.

Photo: Batavia goalie Jimmy Johnston makes a save against a Rochester forward

This year has started off on a good note for two of the Batavia Ramparts teams! They hosted the GAHA New Year's Eve Classic Tournament this weekend and both the Pee Wee Travel (11-12 year olds) and the Bantam III Travel teams both are headed to the championship game! 

The Bantam team will take on the Rochester Youth Americans at 11:30am tomorrow. They lost tonight to Rochester 4-2 in a closely fought game.

The Pee Wee team will face the Rochester Youth Grizzlies at 2:40pm tomorrow.

Both events are free to attend and are at the Falleti Ice Arena, which will have public skate in between the two games.

(Photos courtesy of Scott Grefrath)

The Fighting Irish had their eyes set on claiming the championship win in the Ice Devils' David M. McCarthy Memorial Tournament, but the Frontier Falcons had other plans, as they shutout Notre Dame 2-0.

The Irish came out flying and dominated most of the game by outshooting the Falcons 33-13. 

Falcon's senior forward Matt VanWagner scored the Falcon's first goal on the powerplay with about five minutes into the game. Matt Anticoli and Mike Dombrowski were credited with the assist. 

After many scoring chances for the Irish, they couldn't capitalize and the score remained 1-0 for the majority of the game. With 1:30 remaining in the game, Notre Dame pulled goalie Tom Dehr to add an extra skater onto the ice. With just 11 seconds remaining in the game, Falcon's forward  Josh Baker gave his team the insurance goal on the empty net to seal the tournament victory. 

Notre Dame is now 5-2.

Photo: Batavia's Josh Marr (9), battles with ND's Beau Richter

It was a packed house for the Batavia Ice Devil's David M. McCarthy Memorial tournament at the Falleti Ice Arena Friday night, as Notre Dame came up victorious in one of the biggest cross-town games of the year.

The first period was full of hard hits and scoring chances for Batavia as they outshot Notre Dame 12-4, but the score remained as it started with neither team being able to capitalize on any chances. The second period was Notre Dame leading the shot board 8-7 and it looked as though the second period score would remain the same until Notre Dame was able to put the first score on the board. Forward Josh Johnson set up linemate Jack Nenni as he ripped the puck through the five-hole of Batavia goalie Adam Kurek with 1:50 remaining in the second period.

Notre Dame back out in the third period the same way they ended the second, with a goal, as Nenni and Tyler Kessler set up Brett Perfitt to give Notre Dame the 2-0 lead.

Batavia was not going to let down easy as forward Conor Holvey scored his second goal of the season off a Corey Kocent pass to put Batavia within a goal of ND with just over 8 minutes reamaining in the game but that would remain their only goal. "We came in knowing that one of the factors to beating Notre Dame is we had to beat their goalie (Tom Dehr)," says Holvey. He's a great goalie and contributes positively to his team every game.

Former Batavia forward, Dylan Versage gave Notre Dame the insurance goal with just over two minutes remaining. "It feels good to score against my old team. I am good friends with some of them and we have played together our whole careers so it was really fun," Versage says.

With about a minute left in the game, Batavia pulled their goalie in hopes to capitalize on the score board. Notre Dame forward Jason Harasimowicz had other plans as he scored from his own zone on a dump shot to secure the victory by the final score of 4-1.

"We came into this game the same as we always do and we look at this just like any other win," Versage says. "It definitely makes it more interesting being against our friends and rival but its still just another game and we have to play how we always do."

Notre Dame (5-1) will play against Fronteir in the Championship game tomorrow at 3:30pm at the Falleti Ice Arena, while Batavia (2-3) will play in the consolation game at 1pm against Oswego.

Fronteir (Section 6) beat Oswego (Section 3) to advance to the championship game by a score of 10-2.

Photo: ND's Tom Dehr, stops a shot from Batavia's Will Mulcahy

 (Photos courtesy of Scott Grefrath)

The Ice Devils came out strong on Monday night at the Falletti Ice Arena in Batavia, for a Monroe County High School Hockey matchup, but couldn't hold on, as Brighton/East/HFL came up victorious. Brighton forward Andrew Schwingel scored the game winner late in the game to spoil Batavia's early 2-0 lead and to give Brighton their first victory of the season.

After an extended warm up due to referees failing to initailly show, Batavia came out flying and lit the lamp early. Batavia freshman forward Conor Holvey set up senior Will Mulcahy for his third goal of the season. Keeping the pressure on throughout the period resulted in many scoring opportunities for the Ice Devils, and eventually lead to Holvey scoring his first career high school goal. Senior Rob Henning was credited with the assist.

After finding themselves behind 2-0 in the third period, Brighton came back with a fight as forward James Spencer put Brighton on the board. The pressure didn't stop there as Brighton forward Jack Beers, tied the game at 2-2, only to be followed by Schwingel's game winner, giving Brighton the 3-2 victory off a Kevin Holly pass. Holly finished with two assists for the Barons (1-4-0-1). Batavia falls to 2-2 and faces cross-town rival Notre Dame High School Friday at 5pm at the Falletti Ice Arena. The matchup is the first game of Batavia's annual David M. McCarthy Memorial Tournament.

(Photos courtesy of Scott Grefrath)

The Batavia hockey team's run through the Section 5 Class B sectionals has come to an end.

Spencerport topped the Blue Devils 5-2 at the ESL Centre Saturday and Batavia's season comes to an end.

Mike Leone scored his first goal of the season for Spencerport and it proved to be the game winner at 1:57 of the second period.

Rocky Grattaudaria, Steve Doud and Kevin Keacock also had goals with Steve Hogan dishing out three helpers.

Pat Finnell and Will Mulcahy had the Batavia (11-10-2) goals, with Adam Kurek stopping 20 shots.

Tyler Lariviere had 26 saves for Spencerport (14-7-2). 

 Several area schools are represented in this week's Democrat & Chronicle polls.

Batavia, Attica and Holley are all ranked in the small school wrestling poll as we head into this weekend's sectional tournament.

Batavia is the fifth ranked school, with Attica coming in at No. 6 and Holley at No. 8.

Elba has the seventh ranked girls basketball team in the small school category, with Alexander and Notre Dame also receiving votes.

Batavia's boys basketball team is ranked No. 9 in the large school rankings while Oakfield-Alabama is No. 8 in the small school poll.

Batavia's hockey team also received votes, but did not crack the top 10.

As the high school hockey season is wrapping up, the seedings have the Batavia hockey team in a good place.

The Blue Devils have a 13-7 record and are currently the third seed in Class B. That means that the team will receive a bye as the top four get the opening round off.

Teams No. 5 through 12 will have to play in the first round.

Notre Dame is 7-8-2 and a ninth seed.

Batavia and the Fighting Irish will be playing today at Faletti Ice Arena at 6 p.m.  This is the final game of the season for the Blue Devils while the Fighting Irish has one more game on Saturday at Victor.

The opening round of sectionals is on Feb. 21.

Batavia has three scorers in the top 10 in all of Section 5.

Pat Finnell is fourth with 17 goals and 24 assists with Erik Pokornowski coming in at sixth with 15 goals and 21 assists. Cory Kocent is seventh with 14 goals and 21 assists.

Batavia goalie Adam Kurek and Notre Dame's Thomas Dehr both have six wins in goal. Batavia's other goalie is Rich Paganello, who has five wins.

 The Buffalo News today reported a story in which reporter Maki Becker gives us some more detail on the New York State Public High School Athletic Association cuts as he interviewed executive director Nina Van Erk.

There wasn't a whole lot of information than what we have previously reported, but there are a couple of interesting items in the piece.

Van Erk says that it is expected that the cuts will save schools in the state up to $10 million, with nearly $6 million of that going to officiating fees.

The other thing that comes from this story is that the cuts are expected to be for two years.

The changes, which were approved by a slim majority late last month, would begin in the next school year and would remain in effect for two years, Van Erk told the paper.

This opens up some more questions.

Did Van Erk and the rest of the NYSPHSAA directors make these cuts for two years because it is a quick fix to help schools and families get through these difficult economic times?

Was it announced that the cuts are for two years because that is the original plan or because of all the backlash the NYSPHSAA has received from coaches and athletic directors?

And what happens after two years? Will these policies just continue or will they be reviewed again at that time, with the number of games being returned to the schedule?

Buffalo Public Schools athletic director David Thomas summed up what a lot of people are thinking when they hear this with his quote late in the story.

“I don’t think we should be worried about funding school budgets on the backs of the kids playing sports,” said Thomas told the paper.

Cutting the number of games might help school districts in the more remote areas of Western New York that require longer traveling distances, Thomas said, “but it doesn’t save it up here [in Buffalo], where we are trying to keep the kids off the streets and busy with school and athletics.”

The current schedule allows Buffalo athletes the opportunity to play in suburban areas and “to travel to some nice tournaments,” Thomas said. “Now we have to pull back on that.”

Thomas also questioned whether the cuts were really temporary. “When they take things away,” he said, “they don’t often come back.”