South County teams may have failed to win a game in this year’s CIF/Metro Conference Kiwanis Cup championship playoffs but area players did win their share of respect at Wednesday’s Senior All-Star Game at Skate San Diego in National City.This was the fourth all-star contest overall for the seven-year-old circuit and the first to include a preliminary skills competition.
South County players emerged on top in all four skills drills.
•Mar Vista’s Jeremy Tanaka won the fastest skater award.
•Bonita Vista’s Cody Mazzarella won the best goaltender award.
•Eastlake’s Zack McElroy won the best shooter award.
•Mar Vista’s Ian Nicklen (pictured at right) won the breakaway shooting accuracy contest.
The Northern All-Stars, comprised of players from non-Sweetwater district schools, went on to win the actual game by a 10-8 score over players from Sweetwater district schools. But even that rattled a few egos. Two years ago when the game also featured a North-South format, the North County All-Stars rolled to an 8-0 win.
It’s clearly coming along down south.
“South County players won all the individual awards,” said Nicklen, who ended his prep career as the conference’s two-time scoring leader, finishing with 118 points on 74 goals and 44 assists this season.
He had the opening goal for the Sweetwater district team in Wednesday’s Senior All-Star Game.
Nicklen also earned honors as this year’s CIF/Metro Conference Player of the Year. The award has gone to a South Bay player in two of the last three years to continue a tradition, at least, of individual excellence.
The skills competition exemplified that.
Tanaka defeated all three of his opponents in the once-around-the-rink dash, defeating Scripps Ranch’s Matt Comrie, the runner-up in balloting for the 2006-07 CIF/Metro Conference Player of the Year, in the semifinals and edging West Hills’ Andrew Delgadillo by a half-step, at best, in the finals.
Mazzarella stopped 17 of the shots fired at him while Eastlake’s Daniel Hoshina stopped 14 out of 20 shots and La Jolla Country Day’s Hector Miramontes and Mar Vista’s Mike Gisi each stopped 13 of 20 shots they faced.
McElroy, who finished the season as the Titans’ top scorer with 79 points on 45 goals and 34 assists, hit the target on seven of his 15 shots.
Nicklen scored 11 points in the breakaway shooting accuracy challenge that awarded increasing point values on each goal scored. West Hills’ Delgadillo matched that total, forcing a tiebreaker shootout with Mazzarella. Nicklen won the tiebreaker by depositing two of his three shots past the BV netminder.
“It was fun and exciting and one of the neatest things we’ve done for the kids,” Mar Vista coach Ron Cole said. "It’s a great addition to the All-Star Game. It gives the kids a chance to show their stuff.”
Mazzarella started between the pipes for the Sweetwater district All-Stars, turning aside 16 of the 19 shots he faced as the teams skated to a 3-3 first-period tie. (This year’s game featured three 20-minute periods — just like in a professional ice hockey game — as opposed to the three 15-minute periods normally employed in high school games).
Nicklen tied the game at a goal apiece before the Northern All-Stars got goals from Poway’s Chris Von Holle and Westview’s Leo Scheiler to go ahead 3-1. The period finished even on the scoreboard when Tanaka scored a brilliant shorthanded goal on a spinorama in front of La Jolla Country Day goaltender Hector Miramontes and McElroy deflected in a shot originally taken by Tanaka on a power play.
Hoshina replaced Mazzarella in the Sweetwater district All-Stars’ net for the second period and faced 14 shots, making saves on eight, as the Northern All-Stars raced out to a 9-5 lead.
Eastlake’s Kyle Wagner scored twice in the frame for the South County team.
Gisi stopped 11 of the 12 shots he faced in the final period. Delgadillo hiked the Northern All-Stars’ lead to 10-5 but, following a scuffle, the locals began a heroic comeback with three goals in a span of two minutes to close the score to 10-8.
McElroy notched the first two of the trey while Tanaka scored the final goal with 43 seconds showing on the scoreboard.
The game ended on a highly emotional note that might be further attributed to the South County’s rather strong showing this year.
“It was well-played until it started getting dirty,” said Tanaka, who finished his prep career with two goals and two assists in Wednesday’s Senior All-Star Game.
McElroy (pictured at left) led all scorers with three goals and three assists.Comrie paced the Northern All-Stars, who received goals from nine different players, with one goal and three assists. Falcon teammate Jason Diehl had two goals and one assist while Rancho Bernardo’s Joey Ostrand was credited with one goal and two assists.
Rancho Bernardo defeated Poway, 6-3, in the Kiwanis Cup championship game on Feb. 28 to become the third different North County League team to win a Kiwanis Cup title in as many years, joining previous winners Scripps Ranch (2005) and Westview (2006).
Kory Grahl led the Broncos (19-4) with three goals and one assist in the game while teammate Matt Kresky scored twice and RB’s Tanner Woodbury added a goal and two assists. The Broncos, who finished second in North County League play to Scripps Ranch, opened a 5-0 lead in the contest before the fifth-seeded Titans (16-8) narrowed the score to 5-3 early in the third period.
“It was awesome,” said Ostrand, Rancho Bernardo’s lone representative in Wednesday’s Senior All-Star Game. “It was my first year on the varsity team after being called up from JV. It was awesome to be on the first Rancho Bernardo championship team. With the juniors who are coming back, I think we’ll have a great team next year. We had a lot of talent (this season). When we all played as a team, we could beat anybody.”
The Broncos defeated seventh-seeded Vista, 6-2, in the quarterfinals and eliminated last year’s Kiwanis Cup champion Westview, 8-3, in the semifinals.
Westview topped third-seeded Mar Vista, 10-5, in the quarterfinals while Poway ousted fourth-seeded Otay Ranch, 7-2, also in quarterfinal action on Feb. 21.
Collectively, the six non-North County League teams to qualify for this year’s Kiwanis Cup playoffs went 0-6.
Bonita Vista and Mar Vista had the best chances of knocking off a North County team in the playoffs but while both games remained close for lengthy stretches, the two South County teams could not quite get the job done.
“I’m still swallowing my tears,” said MV’s Cole, whose team held a 5-3 lead through two periods but suffered a third-period collapse that saw the Wolverines skate to the win with seven unanswered goals in the final period. “It’s still an aberration. I don’t have an answer for what happened. We didn’t show up for the third period.”
There were some belated bragging rights to be had on Wednesday, however.
Photo: West Hills' Andrew Delgadillo crashes Bonita Vista goaltender Cody Mazzarella in the breakaway shooting accuracy contest