SD Prep Sports

SD Prep Sports: Roller Hockey

Mariners take early edge in Division II playoff field

By Phillip Brents

NATIONAL CITY, Feb. 26, 2003 -- There was some grumbling among more than just a few coaches when the Metro Conference decided to split up its roller hockey league into two divisions based on competition level. It was an unheard of move in high school sports — taking the top six teams with the best record and relegating the remaining five teams to play against one another for the remainder of the season.

The analogy in football or water polo or any other CIF-sanctioned sport would be to “releague” at midseason based solely on record — meaning that certain teams would not face one another again for the rest of the season. Such is contrary to how things normally operate in high school sports where teams play one another — regardless of competition level — based solely on league membership and where league titles are won based on the finish in regular season standings in athletic contests played against league members.

Mar Vista High School roller hockey coach Ron Cole was not among those particularly pleased with the midseason “releaguing,” as it suddenly left his team without the chance to contend for the Kiwanis Cup championship — the domain reserved only for the top six Division I members.

Instead, the Mariners will have to be content, it seems, with winning the Division II championship trophy.

(Last year, teams played within established leagues before being split into competitive playoff divisions.)

While the season split may not exactly have been fair to everyone — it forced some Division I teams to restrict the playing time of their less experienced players in order to compete head-to-head in games exclusively against top-level talent the second half of the season — the trade-off might not be so bad when the conference playoff finals are contested Tuesday at Skate San Diego in National City.

The Division I Kiwanis Cup championship game is scheduled at 6 p.m., preceded by the Division II final at 5 p.m. The Metro Conference essentially recognizes the Division I playoff champion as its league champion. The teams playing in the Division II final will be playing more for pride than reward, though a trophy was, in fact, awarded last year.

Cole’s Mariners took a big step toward earning a berth in Tuesday’s Division II final by defeating Sweetwater and Montgomery in a pair of shortened round-robin games Wednesday at Skate San Diego. The five Division II teams will play one another once, with the top two finishers (based on a point system) advancing to Tuesday’s division final.

Round-robin games will conclude Friday at the National City rink, starting at 3:30 p.m.

Sweetwater won last year’s inaugural Division II trophy matchup by defeating top-seeded Montgomery 6-4. Though the Red Devils finished their last five regular season games 4-1-0, SuHi head coach Mike Duffey said he still felt the Aztecs remained the team to beat this year.

Mar Vista apparently felt so, too, by the manner in which the Imperial Beach team celebrated Wednesday’s 3-1 victory against Montgomery that came on the heels of an earlier 7-4 round-robin win against the Devils.

The Mariners finished with the best overall record of the five Division II teams at 10-8-0 but dropped contests to both Sweetwater (7-11-0) and Montgomery (8-9-1) in second-half play. Wednesday’s victories avenged both those losses.

“That was a good game for us,” said Mar Vista’s Ryan Agte after the opening win against a Sweetwater team that skated to an 8-3 victory in the teams’ last meeting.

Montgomery was the only team to shut out Mar Vista in second-half play, dealing the Mariners a 2-0 defeat in a game played Feb. 13 at Chula Vista RollerSkateLand.

“The games we lost we beat ourselves,” said Cole, whose team can advance to Tuesday’s Division II final with victories Friday against both Chula Vista and Southwest. “The games that were close were early in the rotation. We hadn’t really hit our stride. In the middle of the rotation is where we really got that stride. Then we stubbed our toes.”

Andrew Fisak had three goals and one assist in the Mariners’ 7-4 win against Sweetwater to jump-start Wednesday’s round-robin tournament. Mar Vista also got three points apiece from Dan Rumsey (two goals, one assist) and Trevor Stutzman (one goal, two assists) while freshman Trevin Tuovenin added one goal.

Winning goaltender Louie Valentine played last season for Sweetwater, which received two goals and one assist from Marvey Ferrer and single goals from Chris Hernandez and Brandon Fox in the game.

The rematch against the Aztecs an hour later was much more of a nail-biter. Montgomery finished with the best record at 6-1-1 in second-half Division II play and the tension in the air was easily felt between the two teams. Fisak broke a scoreless deadlock with 10 seconds to play in the first 12-minute half but that dramatic goal was matched by the Aztecs’ Josh Royal when he leveled the score just 45 seconds into the second half.

The Mariners regained the lead on a goal by Trevor Stutzman midway through the period and doubled their margin less than a minute later on a clutch goal by Tuovenin, who back-handed the puck into the net after initially overskating the play.

Montgomery earlier had showed its playoff mettle after recovering from an early 2-0 deficit against an upset-minded Chula Vista team. The Aztecs eventually prevailed 7-4 behind three goals by returner Chris Troie and two goals and two assists by impact newcomer Manny Simental. Royal, who serves as team captain, and assistant captain Bobby Palma, both had a goal and two assists in the game.

A key matchup on Friday will pit Montgomery against Sweetwater at 3:30 p.m. The teams met in a pre-playoff preview on Feb. 20 with the Aztecs winning 5-4. "We were down 5-1 and we came back but too late. We had some penalty problems,” said the Devils’ Duffey, adding, “it’s up to the players. They can win the tournament again if they play hard."

Chula Vista (5-14-1) could play a spoiler’s role when they meet Sweetwater later that day at 4:30 p.m. The Spartans are led by a trio of four-year players in seniors Thomas Doran, David Rodriguez and Mike Foster, a three-year player in junior Willie Wiser and second-year goaltender Kristina Villanueva. Doran finished Wednesday’s pair of round-robin game with five goals while Foster had two goals and three assists. Doran had a hat trick in CV’s 6-0 victory against winless Southwest (0-20).

Notepad
The Mariners looked like the top dog entering the second-half split — battling Bonita Vista for the sixth-best record -- and got off to a punishing start in Division II play by winning its first five games. However, a late season tailspin found Mar Vista suffering losses to playoff challengers Montgomery and Sweetwater — last year’s Division II championship game finalists.

The Mariners are buttressed by goaltender Louie Valentine, who knows what it takes to win a playoff tournament title after hoisting last year’s Division II trophy with Sweetwater. Valentine has been more aggressive this season and is not afraid to come off his line to challenge shooters, as he demonstrated in Wednesday’s 3-1 win against Montgomery. He has posted two shutouts in second-half play.

Top offensive players include Tony Arciga, Andrew Fisak, Trevor Stutzman and Dan Rumsey. Top defensive standouts include Trevin Tuovenin, Heather Lamb, Brian Dimmock and Ryan Agte.

Entering Friday’s pair of final round robin games, Fisak has scored 31 goals this season while Stutzman had scored 25 goals. Lamb is one of the top female players in the conference, registering nine goals and five assists this season.

The Mariners are multi-talented. Dimmock is a football standout while both Agte (cross country, roller hockey and track and field) and Rumsey (water polo, roller hockey and swimming) are three-sport athletes.

This is Agte’s second year on the team after never having played the sport before. “He has risen to the top,” head coach Ron Cole said. “He has developed an awesome wrist shot and a great sense of rink awareness. It’s actually quite amazing to someone who had never played hockey before to be in the right places.”

Cole also had similar praise for defenseman Nick Fox. “He could barely skate when the season started. He has developed into a varsity defenseman. He likes to check,” Cole said.

Mar Vista, Montgomery clinch Division II finals berths

The Mariners advanced to Tuesday’s Division II final with victories on Feb. 28 against both Chula Vista (6-1) and Southwest (4-0). Mar Vista's Willie Amador had three goals in the 6-1 victory against Chula Vista while Ryan Agte scored a goal in both victories.

The key matchup on Feb. 28 pitted Montgomery against Sweetwater. The teams met in a pre-playoff preview on Feb. 20 with the Aztecs winning 5-4. The rematch was close in terms of on-court play, though the scoreboard favored Montgomery by a decisive 5-2 margin on the strength of two goals and one assist by Bobby Palma, two goals by Manny Simental and a goal and two assists by Chris Troie. Richard Kolerich and Brandon Fox scored one goal apiece for Sweetwater, with Marvey Ferrer drawing both assists.

The Aztecs clinched the Division II finals berth with an ensuing 7-0 victory against winless Southwest.

Thomas Doran tallied five goals in Chula Vista's 6-6 draw against Sweetwater. He had the Spartans’ lone goal against Mar Vista to give him 11 goals for the tournament.

Southwest (0-22) clearly played for pride and earned it. “I knew at the beginning of the season it would be a challenge. What I was most impressed with was that not a single kid quit. Every coach came up to me after the end of the tournament and complimented me on how we were competitive. They had to work harder to beat us,” said Raider coach Jerry Nestlerode