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| June 9, 2003
By Jim Anderson
Philly Style
Gladiators host NARCh Regional
|  Teams from across the east coast converged at the Marple Sports Arena for the NARCh Regional. With everyone from Atoms to Adults playing, there was something for everyone.
The Atom division featured some of the highest scoring games throughout the weekend. The #1 Tour Smoke, who’ve been to the past 2 Championship games @ the Finals, were featured in a couple of them. They scored 23 goals in 3 games, never scoring less than 6, and still were outgunned in one game finishing at 2-1. The Jr. Gladiators would beat them in the round robin, winning a 9-6 fun ‘n gun. However the Gladiators would fall to the Va. Rattlers in the last round robin game on Sunday morning and it would be Rattlers who would advance to the Championship game. The Smoke had won the initial meeting over the weekend by a 7-5 margin. However, they had played 6 games already for the weekend and even the youngest get tired on occasion. The Rattlers played a solid defensive game and for once were able to hold the Smoke at bay, allowing only 3 goals as they claimed the Atom division with a 7-3 victory.
Team Breakaway would be the team to beat in the Mite division as they rolled through the round robin with a 3-0 record. The Jr. Gladiators would come the closest in the early round to beating Team Breakaway as they had dropped a 4-3 contest. They would get a 2nd chance thanks to a 4-3 win over the Philadelphia Revolution. Team Breakaway would take over the game early this time however, and they would win the Mite division with a convincing 7-0 win.
It was a mathematical certainty that Team Breakaway would have one team in the Squirt Final. They had 3 teams entered in a 4-team field. The other entrant was the Hyper Eclipse. Not content to be just a finalist, Team Breakaway Grey would claim the #1 seed. Hyper Eclipse would buck the odds and claim the #2 seed by virtue of a Friday night win over Team Breakaway Black. The two team would meet for the 2nd time in 4 hours on Sunday afternoon. In the initial meeting, Breakaway Grey would win 7-5. The 2nd meeting would be similar as the Hyper Eclipse just couldn’t keep the Breakaway offense at bay for long enough stretches and Breakaway would win another title of the
weekend with a 6-3 win.
Team Breakaway would be gunning for yet another division title, and its 3rd of the weekend, in the Pee Wee division. Standing in their way would be the top seeded East Coast Fury, who has been a steadily improving team over the past year. The two teams met Friday night and the Fury won, 8-6. Team Breakaway would keep its chances for a rematch open with a tough 4-3 victory over the Manalapan Braves. Breakaway would win out its remaining game and advance to the Final. In it, they would lay claim to yet another division as they were able to hold off the EC Fury with a hard fought 4-3 victory.
Guess what? Team Breakaway advanced another team to a Final, this time in the Bantam division. While they were the top seed, they were not the only ones undefeated. The Skaters Choice Stovs also went unbeaten. The two had battled to a 4-4 tie Saturday evening and won their other games to setup the rematch. The Bantam Final would be more of the same with the 2 teams battling to a 5-5 tie after regulation. Overtime would provide more of the same, as the two remained tied after the 5-minute sudden death. The Bantam final would be settled by a shootout. In the shootout, Skaters Choice goaltender would show the form that helped him earn the Top Goaltender award as he would hold of Team Breakaway and the Stovs would win the shootout and the Bantam division with a 6-5 win.
There would be no more titles for Team Breakaway, as they didn’t have a Junior team entered. The division was deep though, with ’02 Regional winners Center Circle Titans and Annandale Maple Leafs in attendance and the Midwest Express making the trip as well as Scarface. Led by Jon “Yanni” Moyal, who claimed the High Scorer award, the Titans would go through the round robin undefeated and advance to the Final with the #1 seed. The 2nd seed would go to Scarface as they won a 3-team tiebreaker with Annandale and Midwest to earn the chance at a rematch with Center Circle. The Titans had won the first meeting by a 5-2 score and the repeat would be more of the same as they repeated the 5-2 score and claimed their first regional title of the year. The addition of players from across the US should only help the Titans as they look to improve on their performance from the ’02 Finals, where they narrowly missed a playoff seed.
Last but not least, the Senior division. The Middletown Mudcats would claim the top seed with a 2-0-1 record. Who would get to face off against them in the Final would go down to the last preliminary game. The Philadelphia 99’ers would advance to the Final if they could beat the DC Devils and hold the Devils to 2 goals or less. If Philadelphia lost, the Cyberweld Wolves, who advanced to the Sr. Final 2 weeks earlier in Rahway, would earn the #2 seed by virtue of their victory over the Devils earier in the weekend. So the Devils would beat the 99ers by a 8-2 score allowing Cyberweld another chance at a regional title. Despite losing to the Mudcats earlier in the afternoon, Cyberweld would come back and claim their first regional title with an 8-6 win.
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