SD Prep Sports

SD Prep Sports: Roller Hockey

Pacific Region teams excel at NARCh Gold, Silver Division Finals

By Phillip Brents

The 2004-05 Tour Pacific Cup teams continued their strong showing at the 2004 NARCh Finals in Cincinnati with nine medals (two gold, four silver and three bronze) in the Gold Division Finals and 10 medals (three gold, two silver and five bronze) in the Silver Division Finals.

Highlights by California teams included division championships by the Knights of Corona (Midget Gold), the Pasadena Pama Chupacabraz (Senior Gold) and the Mission Patriots (Mite Silver) while Arizona’s Mission Excalibur Black captured titles in the Squirt and Pee Wee Silver Finals. The Silver Pee Wee title was the second consecutive for the Arizona program.

Gold Division Finals
Atom Division
AKS Mission 95 earned the fourth seed for the division playoffs but failed to advance past its first playoff game after dropping a 6-4 decision to the eventual NARCh champion PAL Thunderblades from Florida in the opening round.

Mite Division
The Anaheim Mission Bulldogs Yellow -- the Tour Pacific Cup AA Tier champions -- ended their 2004 NARCh run in the division semifinals with a 6-4 loss to the eventual division champion Philadelphia Revolution. The Bulldogs, seeded fifth, won a 4-3 playoff game from the Bloomington (Illinois) Phantoms to advance to the semifinals against the top-seeded Philadelphia team.

Squirt Division
The Anaheim Mission Bulldogs Yellow entered this year’s NARCh Finals as the Tour Pacific Cup AA Tier champions and placed second in Cincinnati to cap a whirlwind season. Whirlwind certainly described the team’s performance at the 2004 NARCh Finals as the Bulldogs and their championship-round opponent, the Mission Snipers from Long Island, N.Y., proved the underdogs of the tournament. The Bulldogs were seeded 11th and finished second; the Snipers were seeded 13th and finished first, though they had to rebound from a 3-2 Anaheim lead with four unanswered goals to post their 6-3 win.

Kyle Novak keyed the Snipers’ comeback with two of those four goals while teammates Danny West and Jaylen Krogman also scored goals in support of goaltender Brandon Morgenstern (19 saves on 22 shots). The Bulldogs had taken a 3-2 lead on a goal by A.J. Hatch after a pair of goals by teammate Adam Siegman had knotted the game at 2-2.

Fourteen teams qualified for the playoffs, including four from California. The Bulldogs paired up with their sibling team, the Anaheim Mission Bulldogs Black (runners-up in the AA Tier at the Pacific Cup Finals), in the first round, winning 7-0 to advance to the quarterfinals against the second-seeded Hystyk Eagles from Michigan, this time winning 8-0. Fueled by their momentum, the Bulldogs promptly dispatched the fifth-seeded St. Louis Snipers in the semifinals.

Red Army (seeded seventh) and Mission Primal (seeded 14th) both ended their NARCh runs with first-round playoff losses.

Skills competition winners included Niko Power of Red Army (fastest skater) and Matt Bartels of Anaheim Mission Bulldogs Yellow (top goaltender.

Pee Wee Division

The Mission Skeleton Crew brought home the bronze medal after advancing to the semifinals with a pair of wins. Seeded sixth, the Skeleton Crew defeated the 11th-seeded Ohio Bounty Hunters, 6-4, in the opening round and then topped the Savelson Oakville Coyotes from Ontario, Canada, by a 6-1 score in the quarterfinals.

The Anaheim Mission Bulldogs Red and Team Rink Rat, both from California, earned the top two playoff seeds but were upset in the quarterfinals in overtime contests. The Bulldogs fell 2-1 to the 14th-seeded New York Jokers while Team Rink Rat succumbed by that same score to the 13th-seeded Nike Buffalo Wings. The Skeleton Crew dropped a 3-2 decision to the Jokers in the semifinals.

The Local Boyz (California), Nor Cal Mavericks and the Rollerplex Panthers (Arizona) brought the total of Pacific Regional playoff qualifiers to six in the division. The Local Boyz earned the fifth seed and bested the 12th-seeded Mavericks in the opening playoff round while the Panthers (seeded 18th) fell 5-3 to the Illinois Phantoms Black team (seeded 15th) in the same round. The Local Boyz went out in the next round following a 6-2 loss to British Columbia's Wild Alpine (seeded 10th). A total of 18 teams qualified for the playoffs.

Justin Peypton of California's Team Rink Rat was the division Top Goaltender with a scintillating .924 save percentage (stopping 85 of 92 shots) while Matt Deutschmann of the Local Boyz won the fastest skater award in the skills competition.

Prior to the quarterfinals a shootout was held to determine the top playoff seed after both the Bulldogs and Team Rink Rat had tied with the same number of points and owned the same goal-differential. The Bulldogs won the four-person shootout 2-0 to get the top seed.

Bantam Division

The Water City Serpents posted the highest finish -- fourth -- among the four California teams entered in the playoffs. The Serpents rose above their 10th playoff seed to topple seventh-seeded Team St. Louis, 5-4, in the first round before shocking the top-seeded Anaheim Mission Bulldogs Yellow team, 2-1, in the quarterfinals.

The second-seeded CCM Devils Dogs were a 7-2 quarterfinal-round upset victim of the eventual NARCh champion Junior Gladiators from Pennsylvania. District 5 -- the 2004 Tour Pacific Cup AA Elite Tier champions -- garnered the fourth playoff seed but fell 2-1 in the quarterfinals to the fifth-seeded ProJoy ISCA Grizzlies from New Jersey.

The Knights of Corona, despite not qualifying for the playoff field, were led by skills competition top goaltender winner Anthony Sanchez.

Midget Division

California teams made it a clean sweep of the top three medals. The Tour Pacific Cup AA Tier champion Knights of Corona defeated the Chula Vista Golden Eagles, 7-2, in a championship battle while the Nor Cal Riot, seeded first, finished third.

California teams owned the division, with a total of seven Golden State teams qualifying for the playoffs (out of 11 teams). Also vying for the division championship were the CCM Devil Dogs, Nor Cal Extreme (Pacific Cup AA Select Tier champions), Water City Serpents and Mission Primal. The Nor Cal Extreme and CCM Devil Dogs both won their opening playoff games (with the Devil Dogs eliminating Mission Primal).

The top-seeded Riot sent the Devil Dogs home following a 5-4 win in the quarterfinals while the second-seeded Golden Eagles (a semifinalist at the Pacific Cup Finals) claimed a tense 1-0 victory against the seventh-seeded Nor Cal Extreme. In yet another all-California playoff matchup, the Knights of Corona (seeded fifth) used power play goals to eliminate the fourth-seeded Serpents.

In the semifinals, the Knights of Corona won a 5-4 overtime game from the Riot while the Golden Eagles, who were revived halfway through the season, skated past Michigan's Motor City Roller Dogs, 5-3, to advance to the championship final.

Brandon Barnette spurred along the Knights of Corona as the division High Scorer with 14 goals and seven assists.

Junior Division

The Tour Pacific Cup AA Tier champion Knights of Corona (after winning the Midget Division title) placed runner-up to the Cincinnati Storm in the older age group. However, the fifth-seeded Knights did not go out without some glory after toppling the top-seeded ProJoy ISCA Grizzlies from New Jersey, 4-0, in the semifinals. The second-seeded Cincinnati Storm, feeding off the home court energy, captured the division title with a 4-3 win. The Knights played into the semifinals after scoring a 4-2 victory against the Great Lakes Lightning from Michigan.

Men's Division

Pasadena Pama Chupacabraz, the reigning NARCh Winternationals champions, out-dueled Missouri's Team Omni, 5-4, to win the championship behind Patrick Gallagher's game-winning goal and excellent defense turned in by Mike Nijjar and Kris Kranzky.

Seeded second, Chupacabraz topped the seventh-seeded All American Blast from Missouri, 5-3, in the quarterfinals and advanced to the final with a 6-5 win against the ninth-seeded CORH Gamblers from Ohio in the semifinals. Longtime division entry Greasy Joe's Bottomless BBQ Pit (last year's NARCh Finals champions) finished with the bronze medal.

Women's Division

Team Arizona placed second after a 4-3 championship-round loss to the second-seeded New Jersey Tour Jaguars. Seeded fourth, Team Arizona upset the top-seeded Cincinnati Eagles, 4-3, in a semifinal overtime contest after opening with a 2-1 playoff win against fifth-seeded Team Misconduct from Japan.

Lindsay Kurtis of Team Arizona won the High Scorer award with six goals and three assists.

In the championship game, Team Arizona (which had originally hung a 4-1 loss on the Jaguars in preliminary-round play) rallied from a 3-0 deficit, making it 4-2 on a short-handed goal and drawing within a goal with seconds remaining.

Silver Division NARCh Finals prove golden

Tour Pacific Cup teams came away with three of the six gold medals awarded in the Silver Division at the 2004 NARCh Finals in Cincinnati. Highlighting the parade of champions were the Mission Patriots from California in the Mite Division and Arizona’s Mission Excalibur Black in the Squirt and Pee Wee divisions.

Impressively, Pacific Region teams captured 56 percent of the medals in the Silver Division Finals.

Atom Division
The Mission Patriots, seeded third, finished third after trimming the fourth-seeded Cincinnati Skatetown Swords, 5-4, in the third-place game. The top-seeded Michigan Wildcats won the division after scoring an 8-2 victory against the second-seeded Cincinnati Storm.

Mite Division
Garrett Niklowitz highlighted the Mission Patriots’ championship drive by earning the Top Goaltender award (.826 save percentage). The division ended with California teams sweeping all three medals. The Patriots - the Tour Pacific Cup A Elite Tier champions - defeated Mission AKS San Clemente, 5-4, in overtime in the gold medal game. The Anaheim Mission Bulldogs White (the Pacific Cup A Select Tier champions) skated off the floor with the bronze medal.

The Patriots finished 3-0 in the playoffs, first defeating the ProJoy Cincinnati Storm, 7-3, and then slipping past the Skatetown Swords, also from Ohio, by a 6-4 score in the semifinals. San Clemente eliminated the Bulldogs, 6-4, in the semifinals.

Mission Primal was the fourth California team among the seven playoff entrants but did not advanced past the first round, losing 8-5 in an upset to the lower-seeded Swords.

Scott Savage of San Clemente scored 11 goals and eight assists as the division High Scorer.

Squirt Division
Mission Excalibur entered the playoff field seeded second to the Mission Patriots from California but took home the gold medal after scoring a 4-1 victory against fourth-seeded St. Louis Flex. The Excalibur program took a bold move up after placing third in the division at the 2003 NARCh Finals.

The Patriots defeated Delaware’s Blue Diamond Blades, 3-1, in the semifinals but fell victim to the Flex in the semis, losing a tight contest, 4-3, to earn the bronze medal.

The Anaheim Mission Bulldogs Red were the third Pacific Region team to qualify for the playoff round but lost 5-4 to the Blades in the opening round. Excalibur finished 3-0 in the playoffs.

Pee Wee Division
Top-seeded Mission Excalibur Black from Arizona turned back the second-seeded York Mission Triumph 90 by a 5-3 score to capture the program’s second consecutive NARCh Finals title in the division. The Arizonans advanced to the finals with a 5-2 win against Kentucky’s Snake Eyes while the third-seeded Mission Patriots dropped a 4-2 semifinal matchup against York in a bid to forge an all-Pacific Region championship game.

Eric Hernandez paced Excalibur to the tournament championship as the division Top Goaltender (.874 save percentage). Blake Sexton led the Triumph to the finals as the division High Scorer with 11 goals and four assists.

Bantam Division
The Anaheim Mission Bulldogs placed second in the division following a 5-2 loss to Michigan’s Dragonmead Radiation. The Knights of Corona won the bronze medal with a 6-2 defeat of Team Ohio in the third-place game.