A bittersweet stretch for Lancer hockey

by Nick D’Amuro
Lewiston Porter Sentinel, January 19, 2008

Last week, the Lewiston-Porter club hockey varsity Lancers had a three-game stretch and came out a little tired, and it sure showed against Starpoint in their game after upsetting defending state champ Cheektowaga.

Sure, the Lancers pulled off the big upset, but they stumbled to their rivals a few days after. To put this into perspective how big that upset was, Cheektowaga’s last regular season loss occurred four years ago. These two teams met last year in the small school state finals, but Cheektowaga had the better of them in that game. So the Lancers used this game to avenge a big loss.

And it was quite an impressive accomplishment for the Lancers to take them down 3-2. Carmen Crapsi got the win in net with a good game. It’s great to see a Lew-Port squad that can rotate two very good goalies in Crapsi and Shotwell. Dave Snell, Matt Browning, and Danny the “Gov.” McGovern scored for the Lancers. Picking up assists were Josh Hays, Sean Casilio and Tom Mooradian.

But in a hard fought game like that, many players could be fatigued for a few days. That probably would explain Lew-Port’s “hangover loss” to rival Starpoint, a team that the Lancers should beat. The final score of that game was 5 to 2. Goals were scored by Konor Krueger and Mooradian. Assists were added by Tyler Maggliazo and Tony Fuller.

Seems that Starpoint has had the Lancers’ number this year defeating them twice. The Lancers did hold a 2-1 lead, then gave up four unanswered goals, and then the fatigue factor began to set in.

Two days later the Lancers got their swagger back and thumped Tonawanda yet again by 12-2 score. Maggliazo put on another show and scored four in the contest. Other players with a strong game were Aaron Sydor; Dan Peters; Matt Andrews; the “Gov.” McGovern; Mooradian; Tony Fuller and Krueger. With the Lancers losing to Starpoint twice, they remain second in their division. The talent is there, they just need to keep putting it all together to get back to states, and they should.