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| June 26, 2003
By Jim Anderson
Sniper Style
Snipers win 3 more Regional Titles @ Long Island Regional
|  NARCh was at Rapid Fire Arena in Center Moriches, NY, as the east coast teams had one last chance to qualify for the upcoming Finals @ TECO Arena.
The Senior Division would be the first group to finish this weekend as they had the Final on Saturday evening, allowing the players the chance to enjoy the sunshine if it were to ever stop raining in New York. The Mission Snipers were the odds on favorite heading into the regional and went through the round robin unscathed with a 3-0 record. They have a good mix of some of the Junior players (Kull, Thompson) along with some of the older players (Enright, Sessa). The Chiefs, who captured the Sr. Gold division at the NARCh Finals in ’99 and ’01, would be their biggest test. After winning the initial meeting by a 5-2 score, the Snipers would come out ready to play and even coaxed Tim McManus out to the floor for the Final where the Snipers would break open a scoreless game with 4 goals in a matter of minutes sending them onto the 8-0 win and their 2nd Sr title in 3 weeks.
The Pee Wee division would have 8 teams battling for the 4 semifinal spots, including Mission Team Atlanta who made the trip up north. They would be the #4 seed after the round robin. The Tour Smoke, who appears to be the East’s best chance in the Finals, would be the #1 seed followed by the Mission Snipers and Mission Hot Skates in the #2 and #3 positions.
Being proud New Yorkers, many of the Smoke players took offense to the Mission Team Atlanta crew arriving Sunday morning with Burger King hats and “I Love NY” T-Shirts. It was a physical game from the outset with neither team backing down from any challenges. The Smoke would keep their composure however, and with strong play down the left side were able to setup numerous scoring chances in their 9-1 win and advance to the Final.
Mission Hot Skates had clinched a playoff spot after their victory over the ISCA Grizzlies, but wouldn’t know their opponent until sometime during or just after the last round robin game, which featured the Dutchess Devils vs. Mission Team Atlanta. If the Devils could score twice, Hot Skates would claim the #3 slot; otherwise they would fall to #4. Well the Devils scored twice in the games opening minutes, with the Hot Skates team cheering them on from the stands. Of course, this didn’t please the Snipers at all, as the Hot Skates saw them as an easier opponent. Taking this to heart, they came out firing early, led by the strong play of Timmy Pendl and Jake Roos goaltending, and would march on to the Final with a 7-1 win.
In the Final however, the Smoke once again proved they are perhaps the top team on the east coast. Timmy Wells’s team was just too deep for the Snipers to overcome and the Smoke would win the Pee Wee division by a 7-2 score. How good was the Smoke? They only allowed 14 shots combined in their 3 round robin games, yielding zero goals.
The Squirts also had 8 teams fighting it out to advance to the semifinals. This time it would be the Tour Black Ice claiming the #1 seed, followed by the LI Stars, Goodsports Sharks and Tour Smoke ’90.
Tour Black Ice would continue their dominance in the semifinals with a 8-0 win over the Tour Smoke ’90, who came back to win 7-5 in a highly entertaining game against the John J Hawks to claim the 4 spot.
The 2nd semi may have seemed like a blowout, 6-0 wins typically are, but this was far from an ordinary game.
The #3 Goodsports Sharks were missing some players early and playing with a near Ironman roster, while the #2 LI Stars were playing with a full bench. The Stars would jump out early, however Goodsports would gain some players and continue to have excellent scoring chances. Stars goalie, Paddy Martin would show the form that helped him win the Top Goalie award by making some phenomenal saves, and causing one parent to mutter, “We got Giguered”.
The Black Ice though were just playing too well, and they would break the game open at the end when the Stars had no choice but to continue to press for offense, as they clinched the Squirt title with a 9-2 win.
Once again the Snipers would be the favorites in the Bantam division. When they are at full strength, they are perhaps the best team in the country. For the 2nd time in 3 weeks though, they were missing key players. While Mosenson would be healed from his elbow injury, Stahl and Bokina were MIA and no one arranged a ride for Oliveri for the first game (how can you not get this kid a ride??). Maybe they were all at the graduation party for Assistant Coach Joe Miller, who graduated from GW this past semester. The result was a 4-3 loss to Hyper Valley Stream. They would hold off the Bad Apples 5-4 in their 2nd game before shutting out Tour Black Ice, 4-0 to close out the round robin. When it was time to sort out the seeds, we’d have a 3-way tie between the Snipers, Black Ice and Valley Stream with only 2 of them advancing to the Final. In the end the Snipers would have the best GA, followed by the Black Ice, who scored 6 of the 10 goals Valley Stream had allowed. It should be noted that defensemen Andrew Leggerio played goal for the Snipers in their 4-0 win over the Black Ice, with Leor Benyamini nursing a strained hamstring.
The rematch would end the same way once again, with the Snipers winning by a 4-goal margin. With Benyamini back in the net, the Snipers took charge early and while Black Ice would put 3 in the net, the Snipers depth would be the difference in the 7-3 win and title # 2 for the weekend. A side note, Tour Black Ice will be a much better team with the additions of John Lechmanski, Tommy Bruce and Ryan Curran, who will be joining the team at TECO.
Finally, we come to the Junior Division and for the 2nd time this season, the first being at the Rahway Regional, the Snipers and Hot Skates would play for the title. The Snipers nearly didn’t advance due to their early loss to their Bantam team, in which they played with little interest. They would finish in the # 2 slot though with Hot Skates taking the top seed heading into the Final. Mission Hot Skates would have their last chance before Finals to see if they could get past the Snipers, which would bode well for them heading to Florida. The Snipers would get the lead though, scored by their new secret weapon and never give it away and eventually took a 3-1 lead, with High Scorer Greg Thompson scoring both goals. Mission Hot Skates would cut the lead to 3-2 before Gary Kull would score the eventual game winner to put the Snipers up once again by 2. Hot Skates was able to get a 3rd past JP Susco, who had shut them out in the Rahway Final, however JP made the saves when it counted and the Snipers would win their 3rd and final title of the weekend.
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