SD Prep Sports

SD Prep Sports: Roller Hockey

Falcons denied yet another title as Torres win 7-5

Montgomery stops Mar Vista 4-3 in OT in Division II game

Editorial: Metro Conference "official" champions? Take your pick

By Phillip Brents

NATIONAL CITY, March 4, 2003 -- It was billed as the battle of the superstars and Tuesday's CIF-Metro Conference Division I Kiwanis Cup tournament championship game did not fail to deliver, especially if you happened to be wearing the blue-colored jerseys of the La Jolla Country Day Torres.

Behind four goals from junior sensation Nathan Sigmund and three goals and an assist from senior captain Frankie Warren, second-seeded La Jolla Country Day denied the top-seeded Scripps Ranch Falcons once again from raising the Kiwanis Cup.

While the Falcons have compiled a 34-4-2 regular season record in two years of membership in the Metro Conference to clearly set the standard of play in the 11-team circuit, postseason success continues to elude them.

Last season, Scripps Ranch felt the agony in a 3-2 overtime loss to third-seeded Bonita Vista. The year before, the Falcons had their wings clipped in the finals of the club-based San Diego County High School Roller Hockey Conference.

It did not take overtime or a superior North County team to squash those championship dreams this season -- just the speed and crafty ice hockey moves of Sigmund and some heads up play by a team determined not to be intimidated by the likes of the Falcons dynasty.

"What do we do -- keep this for a few days?" asked La Jolla Country Day coach Dean Wilson after being handed the Kiwanis Cup trophy following his team's spirited 7-5 win.

Though the Torres are not the official Metro Conference Division I champions this season -- that honor goes to Scripps Ranch as determined in a pre-playoff coaches/administrators meeting -- La Jolla Country Day athletic director Jeff Hutzler said the school is treating Tuesday's Kiwanis Cup victory against Scripps Ranch as the "equivalent of a San Diego Section title for roller hockey" even though teams currently cannot play for a CIF title in the sport.

"Keep in mind that the CIF does not officially recognize champs in sports that only one conference play. Since the Metro Conference is the only high school roller hockey in San Diego there is no CIF championship. We are treating our championship as the equivalent to a CIF championship here at LJCD and we will buy patches for, and hang a banner for our team," Hutzler said.

La Jolla Country Day players can certainly be proud of the manner in which they captured this year's Kiwanis Cup title -- and whatever it actually represents should take nothing away from the fine season that they produced for themselves, their fans, parents and their school.

"It's a great feeling to have all the hard work finally pay off this senior year. I'd just like to thank all my teammates who made it all come together finally, especially Ben (goaltender Ben Bartlett) who's been playing out of control," said the Torres' Warren, who gave LJCD a 1-0 lead four minutes into the contest and later scored what proved to stand up as the winning goal with 6:20 to play in the final period.

The Torres also received standout play from Chris Bartlett (no relation to Ben), who dished out four assists in the game, and specifically from Sigmund, who drew the duty of shadowing Scripps Ranch superstar Dan Comrie while also helping engineer the team's opportunistic offense.

"Nathan stuck on Danny a lot of the time. The games we lost to them earlier in the season, we didn't stick on Danny. I thought Ben played surprisingly good. Danny's shots are great. We had very few defensive breakdowns. Of course, Nathan is a beast," said LJCD defenseman Max Guise.

(Right after the game, both Sigmund and Dan Comrie left for ice hockey practice for their Junior Gulls Midget AAA team that recently won the CAHA Tier Finals and is now gearing up for regionals.)

Dan Comrie finished the game with three goals while older brother Rick Comrie contributed one goal and three assists.

Dan Comrie, who is likely playing his last year of high school roller hockey in advance of a stint in the Major Junior ice hockey ranks next season, was driven -- perhaps the most of all the Falcons -- to putting the icing on the cake, so to speak, to a benchmark season. He scored Scripps Ranch's second and third goals to put his team up 3-2 and later tied the contest at 4-4 with 9:30 to play in regulation time

Sigmund then took over, scoring 30 seconds later on an unassisted goal to break the deadlock. Two more unanswered goals by the Torres -- the first by Warren and another by Sigmund in a 50-second span -- put the Falcons staring at an unenviable 7-4 deficit with just 5:10 to play.

All Scripps Ranch goaltender Brandon George could do after Sigmund's fourth goal (scored on a turnover in the Falcons' zone) was to stand resting on one knee and watch in disbelief.

Prior to the contest, Scripps Ranch head coach Greg Friedman said the outcome would come down to which team could control the other's superstar player. He was not far off the mark.

"We covered him for two periods. Our defense was pressing to get a goal. After a timeout, I told them not to get caught up. We tied it up 4-4 and we let Nathan go right down and score on a breakaway. We were pressing too much to put it away," said Friedman, whose team also received one goal from Grant Chinda and one assist from Andrew Woodfine.

The final four minutes of the game turned into a virtual shooting gallery in front of the LJCD net. The Falcons pulled to within 7-5 on Rick Comrie's goal with 3:45 to play but could get no closer despite finishing the final 1:07 on a power play and pulling George in favor of an extra attacker with 30 seconds left.

"It seems everything that can go wrong does in a final. Every year it gets tighter," Friedman said. "Coming up runner-up in three straight finals put a lot of pressure on our players. I don't know if some of the younger guys felt it as much but Danny and Rick sure did."

Division II final: Aztecs top Mariners

Bobby Palma's goal with 2:00 remaining in the first five-minute sudden-victory overtime period handed Montgomery a 4-3 win. Palma finished the game with one goal and one assist as the Aztecs (12-10-1) built a 3-0 first-period lead before rebounding for the win.

"We tried to keep it in their zone and play sound defense," said Montgomery coach Jeremy Parker, whose team played without substitutes. "We kind of broke down in the second period. We let them pressure us. It works when you put pressure on them. It forces a bad pass."

The Aztecs -- who finished runner-up in last year's division final -- struck for three goals in a 3:30 span. Chris Troie got the game's jump goal with 6:50 to play in the first period, assisted by Manny Simental. After Palma scored 1:10 later, again assisted by Simental, it was time for Simental to score, assisted by Palma, with 3:20 left in the period.

Similarly, Mar Vista (14-9-0) unleashed its firepower in a short barrage to total a game-tying three goals in just 1:10. Tony Arciga had two of the goals, both assisted by Trevor Stutzman, while Dan Rumsey scored once for the Mariners, who just as suddenly switched to a much more docile mode for the third period.

"We were doing well when we were playing aggressive. But to go from a team that won only five games last year to being in the championship game, I'm happy," said Mar Vista coach Ron Cole. "All I can say is watch out next year. We have lots of youth and promise."

Montgomery goaltender Fernando Durhart likely made the save of the game with 7:00 to play in the final period when he took one off the face mask on a two-on-none break by the Mariners.

"That was the biggest save of the game by far," Parker said.

The Aztecs geared up their game following a 3-1 loss to Mar Vista in preliminary round-robin tournament play. During regular season play, the Mariners took two of three games between the teams, though Montgomery earned a split in second-half divisional play.

"We worked our hearts out," Simental said. "We had a lot of encouragement. We wanted to win it. We wanted to get a banner at our school. It feels good now to be in first place."

Parker is simply pleased with how the team managed to produce what it did this season. "We've done a lot with not a lot of guys. We're pretty glad to be here," he said.

Chula Vista's Thomas Doran finished his team's four round-robin games with 11 goals.