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Grand Islander Abby Blair faces off against Canton's Mary Kait Mace during the state championship semifinal Friday in Albany. (Photo by Janet Schultz)
Grand Islander Abby Blair faces off against Canton's Mary Kait Mace during the state championship semifinal Friday in Albany. (Photo by Janet Schultz)

Kenmore/Grand Island reaches state championship

Fri, Feb 12th 2016 08:05 pm

By Janet Schultz

Special to the Island Dispatch

The Kenmore/Grand Island girls hockey team made it to the championship game of the 2016 New York State Girls Varsity Final Four in Albany last weekend.

Grand Island High School players Andrea Colan, LeeAnn Wright, Rosie Boyko, Victoria Botticello and Abigail Blair were playing as members of the now merged Kenmore/Grand Island team. It was the first girls hockey team in Grand Island High School history.

The Devil Dogs faced Canton High School in the semifinals and beat them 4-3 with one of the goals coming from Blair in the second period.

The championship game pitted Kenmore/Grand Island against Thousand Islands/Alexandria Bay Lady Islanders, who Kenmore beat last year to move to the championship game, which they lost to Massena.

Kenmore's Taylor Story dropped in the first goal, during a power play late in the first to end the period 1-0.

The Lady Islanders answered back early in the second and Grand Island's Wright put in Kenmore/Grand Island's second goal of the game to put the Devil Dogs up for just a few minutes before the Islanders tied the game at 2-2.

A lot of back-and-forth action ended with the Lady Islanders scoring the single goal in the third to win 3-2.

Kenmore is one of the founding teams in the Western New York Girls Varsity Ice Hockey league. They have won the Section VI Championship the past five years, including this year, and they won the Federation championship in 2013-14. Section VI has only participated in the NYS Final Four the past five years, Kenmore representing the section in all of the tournaments.

Kenmore/Grand Island lost to Amherst/Sweet Home/Clarence Monday in the quarterfinals of the WNYGVIH Federation, ending their 2015-16 season.

After regular season play, Blair has 9 goals and 11 assists in 18 games; Wright has 2 goals and 2 assists in 16 games played. Boyko and Botticello each have a goal and goaltender Colan has played 188.67 minutes, facing 86 shot attempts and stopping 73, giving her a 3.10 goals against average. She won 3 games, lost 1 and tied 1.

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