SD Prep Sports

SD Prep Sports: Roller Hockey

West Hills is better than record may show
Wolf Pack hopes to qualify for playoffs in first CIF season

By Phillip Brents
Updated Feb. 16, 2006

The CIF/Metro Conference Kiwanis Cup roller hockey championship playoffs are scheduled to start Monday, Feb. 20. Twelve of the conference’s 18 teams will participate and the West Hills Wolf Pack will find out on Feb. 18 at the conference seeding meeting whether the East County squad will be a part of it in its first season in the CIF-sanctioned circuit.

West Hills ended regular season play owning a 3-16 overall record but also ended the regular season with the knowledge that it has competed in inarguably the conference’s toughest league this season. At 0-15 in North County League play, the Wolf Pack finished dead last in the six-team league standings. But West Hills was by no means the worst team in the conference after opening the season with a 3-1 record in non-league encounters against teams from the weaker Mesa League and South Bay League.

The question remains whether the Wolf Pack will be included among the 12 playoff qualifiers based on its early-season victories against Southwest, La Jolla and the San Diego Jewish Academy. La Jolla won this year's Mesa League title, sporting an 11-6-1 overall record, while the San Diego Jewish Academy finished 6-9-2 and Southwest 2-15-1.

The Wolf Pack defeated La Jolla by a 10-3 score on Nov. 30. In its other two wins, West Hills downed the San Diego Jewish Academy by a 7-5 score while defeating Southwest 8-1. The Wolf Pack lost 4-2 to Otay Ranch to halt its season-opening three-game winning streak. Otay Ranch tied for this year's South Bay League title, finishing 17-2-1 overall.

The numbers suggest the East County skaters fit somewhere in the middle of the pack in the 18-team conference. Just where is debatable since basing rankings on a handful of early season results can sometimes be misleading. Some teams may finish stronger rather than starting stronger and vice versa.

In the win against La Jolla, Johnny Baxter scored the first goal and first hat trick in West Hills’ first-ever CIF-sanctioned game as the Wolf Pack opened up a 9-0 lead. Travis Peters and Andrew Delgadillo each scored two goals and one assist for West Hills, which also received a pair of goals off the stick of Keith Gurr. Brian Cordes started in net for the Wolf Pack and was relieved by Cameron McIntyre.

West Hills received a wake-up call in its first North County League game on Dec. 14 with a 12-0 loss to defending league champion Poway. The Wolf Pack’s post-winter break schedule started off with an 11-2 loss to Vista on Jan. 2 and has been just as challenging since then.

But while wins have been hard to come by playing against some of the conference’s top teams (all five of West Hills’ league opponents are expected to receive playoff invitations and several tabbed for top seeds in the upcoming tournament), the Wolf Pack has produced its share of individual standouts.

Cordes, a senior, is one of those.

The West Hills veteran has been playing the goaltender position for 10 years, starting at the La Mesa Sports Center and other house leagues in youth roller hockey.

“I’ve always liked being under fire. I tried skating out but being a goaltender was more natural to me,” said Cordes, who has also competed in the shot put and discus events during the spring high school track and field season as well as playing catcher in youth baseball.

This is Cordes’ third year on the Wolf Pack but not his first introduction to the elite North County teams. Prior to joining the CIF/Metro Conference this season, West Hills competed in the club-based San Diego County High School Roller Hockey Conference where teams like Poway, Vista, Westview and Rancho Bernardo also played before making the jump to CIF play last season.

“I’ve played a lot of these teams before they went to CIF. Poway will definitely be the team that gives us trouble,” Cordes said.

The Titans, with a 15-1-4 record (10-1-4 league mark), have given just about everyone trouble this season. Poway vied with Westview (10-2-3, 15-2-3) and two-time defending Kiwanis Cup champion Scripps Ranch (8-3-4, 13-3-4) for the rights to this year’s North County League title and the top seed in the upcoming playoffs.

The Wolf Pack’s dilemma this season: North County League teams play a triple-round schedule, with West Hills meeting each of those powerhouse teams three times each. Thus, the team’s record is somewhat skewed.

Despite minimal ice hockey experience on the West Hills team, the Wolf Pack has proven competitive against the stronger North County teams even though final scores might not reflect that. Cordes has received words of praise from opposing coaches.

“This year we’re going all out to get everything out of a game that we can,” Cordes said. “Last year, we really didn’t work as hard as a team.”

Teamwork has been a focus this season for West Hills as has been finding a balance between the team’s offensive and defensive players.

“As with any other team, we can be balanced some days and other games it can go the other way. It depends on how we’re doing that day and who we’re playing against,” Cordes said. “I hope to make it at least to the playoffs. If we can make it (after playing teams like Poway and Scripps Ranch), I think we’ll be doing pretty good (for ourselves).”

Getting there will be the big question that will be answered on Feb. 18.