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| June 3, 2002
Detroit NARCh Regional Final Recap
|  Over the Memorial Day weekend, the Detroit NARCh Regional surpassed the 100-team mark.
With 104 teams gunning for Platinum seeds to the Finals it was only fitting that the biggest and best would do battle at the Joe Dumars Fieldhouse. The tournament actually began on Thursday evening with the Varsity Cup and ran through Monday night wrapping up with the Peewee championship. The DRHA utilized the Pointstreak (www.pointstreak.com) scorekeeping system throughout the tournament, allowing game scores and stats to be updated on the web as soon as a game finished.
With the depth of teams in each division, many great games were played throughout the weekend. Although there were many highlights throughout the weekend, a few stood out above the others. The first had to be Tour Venom’s play in the Junior division and especially in their quarterfinal win over the heavily favored Detroit Mission Hyper Stars. The Stars have dominated the young Venom for quite some time and what better place to pull off the upset then in a NARCh playoff game. MVP for the Venom clearly was Joel Miller and his numerous performances between the pipes.
The second highlight would have to go to Team Hyper in the Mite division. While no single game stands out it was just an awesome display of inline hockey every time they hit the floor, including a big come from behind win against Team Viper. Shane Berschbach led the way by averaging almost 4 points a game.
Third would have to be Chris Terry’s goal in the Squirt championship for the Tour Powerhouse. After tying the score with 45 seconds remaining Terry came in from the left side, faked a slap shot, slid the puck between a defenders legs, and took a wrist shot over the goalie’s shoulder and just under the bar with just 2 seconds to play.
St Louis Tour Blast beat Tour Venom in Atoms
The Tour Blast beat the Venom by a score of 5-3 marking the second time that these teams squared off for a NARCh championship game. The other was in the St Louis qualifier. The Venom made a late charge in the game scoring three of the last four goals but ran out of time after spotting the Blast a 4-goal lead.
Team Hyper Rolls to Win in Mites
Team Hyper scored 45 goals in the 6 games they played while allowing just 11. With those numbers it’s not hard to see why they took 1st in this division. The Tour Powerhouse were hoping to come out strong in the final but instead watched the talented Hyper squad score 5 straight first period goals on their way to a 6-2 victory.
Last Minute Heroics for Tour Powerhouse in Squirts
Chris Terry assisted on the tying goal and scored the game winner with just 2 seconds to play as the Powerhouse beat the St Louis Tour Blast. St Louis was up 5-3 with less than 5 minutes to play before Shawn Frank and Chris Terry would take care of business.
Mission Honeybaked Too Much for the Tour Venom in Peewees
The Tour Venom would take an early 2-0 lead but once the Rollin Hogs started rollin’ it was all over. These were definitely the best two teams in this 18 team division and Honey baked may have had just too much of an advantage in size and speed. They went on to score 7 unanswered goals led by Kyle Lawson (1g 3a), Jimmy Fraser (2 g), and Michael Fenkell (2 g).
Hyper Metro Storm Passes Test in Finals over Honeybaked in Bantams
Captain Matt Noel led the way all weekend and continued his strong offensive output from the blue line by assisting on two of the three Storm goals in the final. The Storm would trail 2-1 but got goals from Derek Danowski and Pat Davis to seal the win over Mission Honeybaked 3-2. Zack Beeman, Nino Musitelli, and Dominic Maini all had over 10 points on the weekend. TJ Hensick and Josh Sciba led all scorers for Honeybaked.
Tour Venom Surprise Stars and the A Team to Capture Juniors
The young Tour Venom team with several players from the Bantam Metro Storm team had to get over some huge hurdles to get into the final. The A Team sported some very talented players, like tournament leading scorer Pat Lee and Kevin Devergilio but the Venom would skate to a 4-2 win in the final. Eric Carmichael would score on a beautiful individual effort for the game winner and Joel Miller, tournament top goalie, would shut the door the rest of the way for the Venom.
Varsity Cup - Troy Not Enough for Varsity Blues
The boys from Catholic Central were too much for Zack Beeman and the rest of Troy as they fell to the Varsity Blues by a score of 6-2. Beeman would lead all scorers in the Varsity Cup with 20 points in 5 games but the depth of the Blues paid off in the championship game. Brian Lerg and Eric Reinhardt would lead the way for the Blues all weekend as well as in the championship contest. Jeff Lerg was stellar between the pipes for the Blues.
Stars Down Buffalo in Division I Final
The Detroit Mission Hyper Stars, after their disappointing loss in the Junior division went on to play some inspired hockey in Division I. They would win the final game 9-5 over the Buffalo Junior Wings led by the performances of Dante Damiani who recorded a hat trick and Geoff Cary who netted 2 goals. Buffalo’s goaltender, Jason Flowers won Top goalie in the division.
Team Nexed Too Deep for the Can/Am Stars
Chris Kozlowski, tournament leading scorer, would get 3 goals in the final as would Chad Roy as the heavily favored Nexed team came from behind 3-2 to score 6 unanswered goals on its way to an 8-5 win.
Team Nexed Wins Silver over St Louis Red Star
Ryan Webb and David Vogt led the way for Team Nexed all weekend with 16 points apiece. Red Star who beat Nexed in round robin play 6-1 were out skated in the final and fell by a score of 6-3. Webb and Vogt had 2 goals each and combined for nine points in the game.
Downriver Hornets Sting Forum Danglers for Bronze Title
The Downriver Hornets would skate to a 4-3 win over the Danglers led by Chris Abraham’s two goals and the strong play of goaltender Doug Arnold. Steven Isacopelli had a goal and 2 assists for the Hornets.
Team Nexed Holds on to Beat the Ontario Blades for Womens Championship
The Ontario Blades didn’t quite know what to expect when they made the trip to Detroit but found themselves in the final game against a team they had beaten 3-2 in the round robin. Michelle Hernandez and Juli Bradford would score two goals each to lead Nexed to a 5-2 win. Christina Cornish had both of Ontario’s goals. The Blades went 2-1-1 on the weekend and received some great goaltending by Shelley Hamden.
 
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