From last place to playoff-bound
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- January
- 26
Entering last night, Fordham Prep was in last place and Iona Prep just needed to win to clinch a playoff spot (and climb into a tie for first). After the Rams’ 6-2 win, its Fordham Prep that’s in good playoff positioning while Iona Prep may not even have a chance to defend its title.
It’s been that kind of year in the CHSHL, where the standings change after each game, and last night was no different. Fordham Prep moved from sixth to fourth with 12 points and two games left against Chaminade (11 points), while Iona (13 points) is still in third but has just one game left. Here’s the article from the game.
It was a great performance from Fordham Prep, who was coming off a 4-0 loss on Saturday night to St. Anthony’s. Michael Spillane scored on a breakaway five minutes in and a 2-on-1 four minutes later to make it 2-0. Alex Lopez scored and then set up the second goal to tie it early in the second period, but Anthony McGuinness scored twice in the final four minutes of the second period to regain the lead.
Fordham Prep scored again on the power play early in the third, and in the process of spending 9 of the last 10 minutes shorthanded (thanks to a five-minute major for highsticking, a minor for high sticking and a double minor for roughing), the Spillane completed his hat trick with an empty-netter.
It was a huge team effort for the Rams and sophomore R.J. Fusco (27 saves), who may have gotten Iona Prep back for its playoff sweep last year by knocking them out this year. The Gaels need to beat Stepinac in the finale next weekend, and even then they’ll need some help to grab one of the four playoff spots.
There were some other noteworthy performances last night. Joe Marasco (one goal, three assists) recorded his 200th varsity point in Somers/North Salem’s 6-1 win over Fox Lane. I’m guessing he’s only the second active player to reach that mark (Matt Willows would be the first) — can anyone verify that? That was also S/NS’s seventh straight win, a streak matched by Ossining, who beat Clarkstown South 4-0. Matt Annibale (2-2) had a hand in all four goals and the O posted its second shutout in two days.
We had one other score reported to us — Eric (four) and Ryan Basmajian combined for six goals as Byram Hills beat Kennedy/PV 7-4. Someone also posted that John Jay beat Scarsdale 4-1, snapping the Raiders eight-game unbeaten streak. If true, this is the best win of the season for the Indians, so congrats to them. Maybe projections of a quarterfinal upset to a League 3 team are premature? Or was that game just a fluke?
There’s only one game in Section 1 tomorrow, Rye Town/Harrison-White Plains. I’ll post some updated seeding projections around noon, and then Tuesday we’ll have Ed WItz and Mike Chiapparelli on Varsity Central Live. A reminder that any players interested in writing a player blog should e-mail me at hgutmann@lohud.com. Thanks for the almost 300 comments this weekend, please keep them coming.
This entry was posted
on Monday, January 26th, 2009 at 1:32 am by Harold Gutmann. 
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Congrats to Fordham. You showed us what a team was last night.”the sum of all its parts”
I have to agree that Iona plays better without the stars.A previous blog mentioned the good of the team.It is not being negative to state a fact. When kids don’t get ice, Turnbull says its for the good of the team. Does that still count? My kid went from regular shift to 2-3 shifts for the good of the team.We won with certain players out, not negative, just fact. Maybe its time for the full time players to show they can do it or go down trying.Just my thoughts.
Playing too much hockey no doubt has an effect. At this time of year after 40-50 junior games, countless practices and trips, the legs don’t work the same and there is no doubt that Iona’s first line does not have the jump it used to. It really has been evident for a while now. I’m sure the other kids see it too and when those players are on the pk and pp too, they’re shot. No knock on that line, they’re good players but are really looking played out lately.
Geez, enough already from the Iona blogger who keeps ripping the Iona team. You start to think it is either a disgruntled player or parent, or just someone on another team looking to make Iona look bad.
Also, this is a varsity blog, please lets not talk JV or Modified… those are develpomental leagues… they are not playing to win for the most part. There are no modified playoffs or standings etc.
Iona has become the new annoying blogger… kinda like Fordham was a few years ago.
for those few guys who were interested…
looks like someone over at the chshl is trying to get some standings up and running on the website in place of mike mitchell. as always, mike, our prayers are with you…
as i guessed, the jv is basically a power 4 and a weak 4…it was known who was making playoffs, just a matter of where those 4 fit 1 through 4
http://www.chshl.net/j_v_standings
to the fan who was inquiring about the St. A’s win only by 2 or 3 over Fordham…as stated earlier, it was probably due to no shows and lack of intensity…remember, this is the same Fordham team that lost to St. Joe’s by the Sea…yes, I know Fordham tied Iona and only lost to Iona by 2 in its Iona games, but you’ve gotta realize A) those are rivalry games and B) in both games, Iona must’ve tripled up Fordham on shots lol
anyway, good luck to the only local (Iona) who will go into playoffs…if Iona can knock off Chaminade and St. Ant’s in these two Murray’s games, they’ll be making a statement…
i’ve never seen so much whining and babying
if its hockey and in the high school years, TALK ABOUT IT…PROMOTE THE GAME for crist’s sake…unbelievable…
rcds action
wednesday, 1/28, st. thomas moore at rcds, 5pm
I’m just glad all of the Suffern bloggers have shut up because they finally realize their team is not that good.
chsaaguy,
Wow, there is a difference between information and obsessive behavior. You must have broke the record for most blog entries.
At what point do we start talking about modified, travel, house league standings, mens league, pickup hockey and pond hockey, and knock-hockey, table hockey, field hockey, nintendo hockey, Wii hockey…etc etc etc.?
We get it, your kid plays at Iona, you are upset that teams like Mamk won’t waste their time with Iona, you are upset that Fordham just beat them, you are living through their JV team.
Stating the facts is not being disgruntled.
oh just wait til i get started on travel and junior…you asked for it…haha…even some good men’s league here and there, or how about some roller at murray’s?? you know that’s good hockey..lol
and no, you are completely off, my sons you claim i have do not play for anybody
makes you even more nuts chsaaguy, I might understand if you had a kid on the team, but now I would look for some help if I were you.
where should I send the warm bottles of milk to?
Hey chsaaguy,
If you had a sports talk show these people would be calling up telling you how much they don’t like you but they still would be listening, lol.
lolol
The Iona JV talk has been over-the-top this season. Far exceeding the infamous Stepinac JV of 2 seasons ago.
And that is a very good lesson in what can happen to the “worlds greatest JV Hockey teams”. While that Stepinac JV has gone on to some varsity success (runner-up in last years CHSHL, and middling success this season) they have not set world records as a varsity team.
I’d advise the Iona JV promoters to tamp down their over-promotion of this team. The expectations have now been set incredibly high. Can this Iona JV team win against future Suffern, Mamaroneck, Pelham and Farrell Varsitys which currently feature many excellent freshmen and sophomores?
So blogging insanely “promotes” high school hockey?
any hype for WP-North Thursday at Ebersole? does WP have a shot…?
promoting?, there you go
get the facts, figures and angles out there so everyone is as knowledgeable as possible
Not sure about the WP-CN game, I am sure the CN kids want to show their “OLD” coach a few things! LOL
For the most part for every kid that is blogged about on these boards goes off into the sunset and ends his career in hockey. Scarry but the NCAA is allowed to begin to talk with 7th graders in basketball any true college freshman playing the game are down to a mear handfull. Where is King, where is Connors we all see our best players playing in the mens league. This is not a public forum but assuming you do not violate the terms of service you can say what you want. I am happy for any talk of hockey at the HS or youth level because its good for the game. There are many subjects on here that don’t interest me and I scroll down and move on but its not up to anyone to tell another poster what they can and can not talk about. They can talk about Zambonni drivers if they like as long as they blog hockey.
Thus Post on chsaaguy. Wake them up in the IONA program wake them up in the Catholic League because its good for the game.
So travel committments have brought teams teams down this year. There must be something to be said about how Fordham doesn’t tolerate travel players missing HS games. Yes they lose a few players over the years but by the end of the season they became a team.
Complaining anonymously about your coaches does not promote the game. Complaining anonymously about other teams coaches does not promote the game. Complaining anonymously about players on your team, or other teams does not promote the game.
All the complainers who are complaining anonymously are cowards, who are using this forum to grieve their own personal problems in a pathetic attempt to sway opinions about other peoples kids, or other coaches or their own coaches. These are not “FACTS” they are opinions. When these opinions are anonymous, and possibly hurtful, then they are cowardice. So lets not mix facts with personal agendas.
Quality Wins is one big factor the NCAA relies on to determine their pairwise rankings used for seeding the NCAA tourney. Here’s a shot at “quality wins” for the Section One teams. Hard to include the CHSHL in the win totals discussion because they play each other so often, most of us don’t know much about the non locals (Chaminade, St. Ants. and Farrell) and their website not current enough to figure out how the locals have done vs. each other. I define a “quality win” for a Section One team as one over any of the following teams:
(1) League One team with a .500% or above record, (2) Top 4 League Two team (after North, the next 3 seem to be pretty similar), (3) Local CHSHL team -they all are in the playoff hunt and about dead even with each other in the CHSHL standings, and (4) a team that has made the sportwriter state rankings.
Suffern- 5 (Rye[2X], Pelham, WP, North Roc)
Mamo- 3 (Pelham [2X], WP
Rye- 3 (Mamo, Pelham, Fordham)
North-3 (Pelham, ETB, Stepinac)
Scarsdale 3 (Rye, North Roc, Fordham)
Pelham- 2 (Suffern, WP)
WP- 2 (Mamo, Rye)
Pac- 2 (Rye, Scarsdale)
ETB- 1 (WP)
North Roc-1 (ETB)
New Ro-1 (Scarsdale)
Jay-1 (Scarsdale)
Suffern, Mamo and Pelham each have upstate trips remaining against state ranked teams and the top half of League One and League Two have a bunch of important upcoming in league matches. So, these totals will change. But, so far, it seems like ETB and North Roc getting a lot of press without a lot of impressive wins yet. These two teams need to win some big ones to stay in my top 10. Also, Scarsdale deserves consideration. Last nite’s loss to Jay and the Fieldston shootout loss (goes as a tie) not good ones, but everyone has a flat non league games like those during the season.
Very good work fanotgame. I like that a lot. It really gives you a true picture of what teams have done this year. I have read too often about teams with X amount of wins in a row and how good they are, when they have only beat a bunch of teams with losing records.
In an effort to address promoting? last post I must say that year to year any coach within HS hockey has challenges as his horses come and go. Also some teams gel some don’t.
I personally find it bad to complain about a coach as its a thankless job. Lets face it they have to ballance winning with turing these young boys into men.
That should not give anyone of them a pass in the hockey sense as the game is bigger than any one coach even the ones who walk on water with 300 plus wins. There are agenda’s all over these board. Some parents touting their kids thinking that there are scouts reading this nonsense and making notes as to whom to look at. There are parents pissed their little Johhny only gets his skates wet during the warm up.
I am guilty of complaining about talent developing bad habits playing HS hockey over their travel teams but that has to do with the quality of the teams system or lack of a system. In the end the scores don’t lie. My opinion is that I would take a team with heart and desire over a team chock full of underachieving stars looking to personally score. In the end when they shut off the lights at night all coaches and players know the score and how to affect change within their game. If they don’t they won’t be there long. Hockey remains a team game. I route for good hockey and good coaching.
fanotgame
fyi…mamo did not beat wp
to hold on there- sorry, I meant Mamo’s other quality win was against the other White Plains HS that plays hockey (Stepinac). Still 3 quality wins for Mamo.
Chshaa guy
question if st anthonys and iona are tied according to a comment last night st ants is in b/c of wins but if theres a three way tie which could end up being chaminade st ants and iona how would that work?? the same way?
catholic fan,
i learned 2 things last night
A, chshl goes straight to head-to-head, not most wins on tie break
B, i believe St. Ant’s was recently mathematically eliminated (however i didn’t look into it as of yet…)
I don’t think St. Anthony’s has been eliminated yet. It would have 13 points if it wins its last game. If Fordham Prep and Chaminade split its last two games, and Iona loses to Stepinac, then St. A, Iona and Chaminade would all be in fourth with 13 points. I’m not exactly sure what the three-way tiebreaker is, but if it’s wins, St. A’s would have the most.
Right now Iona Prep (13 points) has the head-to-head tiebreaker over St. A’s, so St. A’s would need a third team like Chaminade to force a different tiebreaker.
If Iona, Cham and St A end up tied in that scenario they would all be 3-3 against each other but Cham also has a game left with Step so if they were to split with Fordham and get a tie or win vs Step they are in
can we clear this up i play for st ants and today we were told at practice that the first tiebreaker no matter what is wins can someone tell me for sure?? lol
North is going to beat WP like a rented mule! 8-1
topshelf, Harold and co.,
I’m going by the player lol
stants, what exactly happened in that stepinac game? (forfeited loss 1-0?) did you guys have less than 5 skaters? did you play a whole game? were more goals scored…and the 1-0 just represents the forfeit?
chsaaguy
wouldnt you think that total wins would be the first tiebreaker ? Isn’t crazy that a player has to come on this site and ask ? Hopefully his coaches are right but who knows ?
the game never took place we had 5 players and two goalies b/c of a few last minute emergency phone calls to teh coach i myself along with a few other players had a state implication travel and a few guys had junior games the game never happened and it may come back to hurt us bigtime its a shame because were finally firing n all cylinders in the words of fordhams coach after saturdays game “you guys were flawless its also a shame how long it took us to wake up now we can only play Lets go frairs!! lol
state implication travel game*
stants
In my opinion and many others you are the best team in the league. Very unselfish, good tight system and everybody works, good goalie too. Good job in not giving up and play well Friday. Good luck
also an added fact our coach had tried to get the game moved b/c he could not attend b/c he had a work function his request was denied he asked i believe a week before
topshelf
Thank you were lookin for a big win and lets go stepinac!!
stants
you know Step only has 8 or 9 most of the time anyway. Why couldnt you play with the 5 skaters and maybe use the other goalie as a skater. Would the league not let you play with just 5 or did your coach not want to risk injuries ?
you hit it right on the head he did not want to risk injuries the team and coaches aren’t happy about it now but it may have been the best decision at the time
I believe we actually only had 4 skaters available that night.
Yeah Im sure not but it probably was right. The real shame is although Step is well coached with some good players they could never beat you with a full team. Not now for sure.
SA
you may be correct
topshelf
we hope to see them in the playoffs
topshelf,
also we did not realize that it would result in a minus point otherwise we would have gone and lost 100-0 just so they didnt take the point off.
friars,
Thats a good point, who would know ? The only problem with that is it can be easier getting hurt not trying you know ? It’s not easy relying on other teams I know. I guess you need Step to beat Iona and Cham, correct ? It would have helped if Iona beat or tied with Farrell I guess.
yah tht wlda helped heres are situation
we need step over Iona
step over cham would be nice but if not we need either cham over fordham twice or vice versa for a spot but stepinac basically controls our destiny
Farrell-Stepinac-Fordham-Iona will make the playoffs.
St. Ants misses by one point which is a shame because they are the best team right now. Fordham peaking at right time. Took apart a full squad Iona team Sunday. Only lost to St. Anthonys this past weekend beating Iona and Farrell. Also beat Stepinac last game easily with their full team. Could Fordham be the team to beat or will coaching come into play giving Stepinac the edge.
if st. ants makes the chshl playoffs, they’ll win the whole thing. Similar to fordham they’ve peaked late but are still alive. It’s been a very interesting season, and I’m positive that the chshl playoffs will be very intense