Top four seeds advance in Division I
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- February
- 26
There was an incredible comeback and an improbable finish in an amazing doubleheader at Brewster Ice Arena on Wednesday. FIrst, White Plains fell behind 4-0 midway through the second period, and then scored six unanswered goals to beat Clarkstown North 6-4.
And then Lakeland/Panas scored three times in the third period to take a 5-4 lead, gave up the tying goal with 27 seconds left, and then lost in overtime when a defenseman, attempting to send the puck behind the net, instead seemed to panic and fired it at the net and right to the most dangerous (and probably most motivated) player on the ice, Mahopac’s Tyler Perrelle. Perrelle, who was bloodied early on and then sat in the penalty box for 11 1/2 minutes while Lakeland/Panas mounted its comeback, finished the game 6:48 into overtime.
White Plains has now beaten three of the top 5 Division I teams in the state (Suffern, Mamaroneck and Clarkstown North). They’ve also played some clunkers, but clearly when they’re on they can beat anyone. The difference Wednesday night was depth. While Clarkstown North received all its scoring from three players, two of which (Matt Willows and Jake Shuman) basically played the entire third period, White Plains had all five of its regular forwards from the top two lines score (the sixth was sick and didn’t play), plus defenseman Ryan McGee, and really tired North out by the end.
You can read more about last night’s game, plus a great coaching maneuver by Howie Rubenstein after the team lost to Pelham and knew it was going to be matched up with North, by clicking on my article.
In the nightcap was special for a different reason — two teams going back and forth in front of a really electric crowd. I hadn’t seen Lakeland/Panas play this season, but the young Rebels, led by defensemen Kyle Park and Robert Belger and forwards Robert Cafferey and Nicky Belger, were outstanding. It’s unfortunate the game had to end on a mistake, but that’s overtime hockey in the playoffs. Not that we needed the reminder, but throw out the top few and bottom few teams, and not much separates the other 25. And still Mahopac seems to make it back to the sectional semifinals every year.
Mahopac will meet Mamaroneck, who also scored six unanswered goals to overcome a second-period deficit and beat North Rockland 7-2. Talk about balance — seven different players scored and 12 recorded points for the Tigers, who outshot the Red Raiders 54-20.
The only team that didn’t struggle was Suffern, who beat New Rochelle 7-1. The top line of Zac Hiller (3-3), Johnny Hill (3-2) and Jake Jaeger (0-5) produced six goals and the shots were 44-15.
So after all that, the top four seeds have advanced in Division I. Here is Friday’s semifinal schedule:
No. 1 Mamaroneck vs. No. 4 Mahopac, 5:30 p.m. at Hommocks
No. 2 Suffern vs. No. 3 White Plains, 7 p.m. at Sport-O
I’ll be back Thursday morning with a look at the Division II quarterfinals, and after stopping at Blazer’s for a burger, I’ll be back at Brewster for another doubleheader, which I can only hope will be half as exciting as Wednesday’s.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 2:48 am by Harold Gutmann. 
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Mahopac finally gets to play someone other than Suffern in the semi’s. Great, they get the #1 team in the state. Should be fun.
Go PAC!
Can a WP fan or player explain the “dubset” reference?
Suffern game was non to exciting with not many fans,and for those Prunesti lovers from what I saw he was pretty much a non factor.
what were the shots on goal in the CN vs. WP game?
also shots for mmk vs. NR
Congrats to WP’s and their coaches. Nice article today. I am happy for coach Rubenstein who throughout his tenure has been a positive influence on the league. Talk about the coaches who get it, well he truly does. You may have seen Mcgee and Rui miss a meaningless game, but they were always there in an important one. He has not shyed away from the best teams or the worst. And, I never liked the old North Coach, but I dislike their administration even more, so I am happy for him today, the enemy of my enemy is my freind right? Go Tigers, its time for a new champ.
Suffern’s goaltending and D is phenomenal. They held CN to 1, Pelham to 0 and 1, Mamk to 2 and 2 and WP to 1 and then 4 and shut Rye out twice. The most they’ve allowed is 4, three times, the one to WP and then to West Genny and Greece Athena/Odyssey.
the budset refrence is a nickname for white plains if u dont get it..then ur not apart of it..no offense
WP will NOT score 4 against Suffern tomorrow, that is money in the bank!! I AM NOT MAKING EXCUSES HERE SO DON’T JUMP ALL OVER ME, but the team WP saw at Ebersol was far from the team WP will see tomorrow. Good luck to both teams I hope it is a fun game to watch, Go Suffern!!!
Suffern:
Mamaroneck shots were 54-20 (it was in the post above)
White Plains outshot North 25-24. It was 8-2 CN after one.
Hey I was out of town yesterday. I just wanted to know when the big Suffern vs. Clarkstown North game is. I can’t wait!!!!
My prediction:
Clarkstown North 6
Suffern 0
Nobody can stop Clarkstown North!!!! Go RAMSSSSSS!!!!!!!
Nobody is worried about the Suffern D. However, with Sufferns anemic offense all you need is 2 goals to beat them.
Their D isnt that spectacular either,the league has just fallen way down.
WP will not get 2! I would be suprised if they get one, Suffern has a lot to prove after the beating they took last game at Ebersol, I will predict 4-1 suffern.
Every year people say the league is down. If that were true, by now noone would know how to skate.
Yes the league is down, that’s why they have 3 teams in the top 5! Please stop living in the past!
Actually !!!! the league is better than when you/or your son played !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WP didn’t have their star players when we beat them at Sporto and our boys were a little under the wheather playing at the freezer. Both teams are full strength now, so it has the makings for a great game.
4 league 1 teams in the top 5 in State. Div I and Div II
Wasn’t IceMan a former Suffern player?
That hasn’t happened in a while. Do you think the whole state has gone down hill?
I think that section 1 hockey has improved tremendously in the last 10 years. Many more quality teams and players, offsets the best talent now routinely going private, prep or juniors.
But, upstate hockey has remained the same and perhaps got a little worse. The long term upstate economic woes and population decline has contributed to this.
I think some of your minds have gone downhill.
This is for !!!!—- While your team was very impresive in winning To say richie prunesti was a non factor is missing the point. Suffern was vastly superior in every aspect of the game. The coaching staff did a great job of preparing Suffern. New Ro was lucky to be there. And Richie has been our Leader since he walked on the ice last year. He is a sophmore and he is just going to get bigger, stronger & smarter next year. And just ask yourself this, would Suffern or Mamaroneck or White Plains have there best player change positions for the playoffs? New Rochelle had to do this. And the kid did it without complaining. He is a terrific hockey player and a great kid.
while there is more parity in the Section this year than in years past, the talent of the powerhouse teams has dropped from “superior talent” to “very good talent”.
for example, look at the 2005-2006 season and look at the Suffern and Clarkstown North teams – those are two of the best teams this section has seen.
Suffern had the Daniels, Natoli, Salt, Yorke, Kastor, etc.
Clarkstown North’s first line was that power line of D’Addio, Gellis and Froatz. Their second line was Mickey Carroll, Matt Willows (as a freshman) and Josh Shuman. Defense was Rich Willows, and a bunch of other solid players. Now that is some seriously good talent depth. Just not sure the current Suffern, Mama and other power teams have that kind of superior depth anymore.
Gotta agree with stix there. I mean, that Prunesti kid is a sophomore and he is among the section leaders in goals and points. He isn’t a cocky kid and has never given off that impression on the ice either. He plays hard and lets his play do the talking. I think all the negative people on this blog should worry about supporting their own teams and stop ripping other teams/players.
You obviously played in that day. Those are individuals. Overall the TEAMs are better.
Didn’t Suffern’s coach play some of the kids from the bench and 2 other goalies almost the whole third period? I thought the Suffern people says he never plays the bench kids.
I must agree the overall talent of the teams in the late 90’s and early 00’s was better in the section 1. Suffern had Foster, Foote, Gilner, Colombia; Rye had Tomassian; Pelham had the D’Agostino’s, Fredericks, Evans, Harrigan; New Rochelle had the Tozzo’s, Cascarano, Williams, Barry; White Plains had Arhangelsky. Just in that group you are talking about some of the best talent to ever come out of this section. CJ Tozzo(Niagara), Jon Foster(Denver), and Eric Tomassian(BU) played D1. With prep school and juniors becoming so prevolant, its just a fact that the talent pool has dropped off. The teams now may seem deeper but that is because the top talent is not as good as it used to be.
Oh stop already with the Glory Days of 2005-06. Do something with your life so you don’t have to live in the past. Those 2005-06 teams didn’t have to worry about incredibly deep teams like White Plains, and Mamk and back then, they didn’t even have to think about teams like North Rockland, ETB etc.
Just that more top talent is going the prep or private school route. Last years Mamo, Suffern and two years ago CN had remarkable talent clusters.
But, through and through the section there are many more quality teams. Lakeland, Sleepy, Ossining, Pawling, North Rockland, CN, Scarsdale, Somers, New Rochelle, ETB. This good middle level did not exist 10 yers ago. Even lowly NTZ and Greeley were not pushovers this year.
Remember the Section 1 teams from the 1800’s? Now those were the days.
Brewster and the Ice Hutch opened about 10 years ago and now the kids who have been playing at those rinks as well as at SOR and Hommocks are now playing on their respective school’s varsity. This is the reason why Section 1 is so much more competitive now with the other sections in New York State. We have caught up to everyone.
Schelling does play the bench kids, but not as much as some parents think he should.
I’ll repeat a point from an earlier blog, that seems to be affecting the quality of rockland programs:
One thing Rockland County coaches need to do immediately is to reverse the trend of the best, and now even average players, going to New Jersey private schools St. Joseph’s and Don Bosco.
Austensibly, this is being done for “academics” not hockey, but all rockland public schools with hockey programs are good academic schools. At least that’s my personal opinion.
These varsity coaches have to make a middle school connection with the players and their families. Don’t just assume that your best modified players will show at tryouts in their freshmen year.
This does not apply to Suffern, which never losses freshman to private schools.
Names are names, and it’s completely idiotic to compare players from a couple years ago and say they’re much better than the ones out there now.
How do you know? (You don’t)
Is there any way to prove this? (Of course not)
Is there any compelling reason why talent would have gone down?*
I can name names too, but it’s a no-win argument anyway.
How was Clarkstown North ranked 6 in division 1 but yet ranked in top 5 for the state??
Clarkstown North played in League two…....Do you really think that Willows and Shulman would of had as many points this year IF THEY PLAYED IN LEAGUE 1? Don’t think so!!!!!!!!!!
Q: If the final turns out to be Mamaroneck vs White Plains, will the Tigers be home or away?
A: Yes
“How was Clarkstown North ranked 6 in division 1 but yet ranked in top 5 for the state??”
The weight assigned to the CN schedule was 6.5 which was alot more than it should have been.
Sorry….CN Schedule was weighted at 7.6 which was really way to high! Suffern, with all it’s upstate games against the top teams in the state including #1 Greece, was weighted at 9.2 and Mamaroneck was weighted at 8.4.
7.6 was way too high for a Sec.1 League II schedule.
Ok so how does mahopac rank number 4?
jason,
The seedings go by league standings. The League 1 teams (Mamo, Sf, WP, Mahopac, RTH) followed by League 2 (CN, etc.) followed by League 3. CN was in League 2 because it was the last-place team in league 1 last year.
Thanks I understand now.. back in the day we (St Joes) used to play Clarkstown North and South,Suffern and North Rockland. I would love to see some of the Westchester/Rockland teams play st joes or bosco or bergen catholic…I bet there would be some good games
i do believe that willows as a sophmore at cn had 105 pts in league 1 so yes he could have done it in league 1 again. he did have 4 pts against wp last night and alot almost all the pts against them in past games this season too.
Willows would still have scored a lot in Lague One. Probably not as many as he did playing a League Two schedule, but still a lot. The problem with the League Two placement for North was they had to play WP in the quarters. Had North played in League One, they would have likely finished third or fourth. If it was Third, they would have been a 3 seed playing the quarters against the RTH/SHI winner. If North finished 4th in League One, their opening round game would have been Carmel followed by a quarter match against the Pac/LP winner. Either way, North is safely in the semis if they had played League One this season.
Iceman you are clueless and stix I never questioned the kids ability or that he is their team leader, all I said was he was a non factor last night.
To many of you read way to much into a simple statement and then throw in what you think the person was trying to say.
Paul=Wall
4-0 suffern
“i do believe that willows as a sophmore at cn had 105 pts in league 1 so yes he could have done it in league 1 again.”
With the team he had this year????????????????? Or last year?????????????? What are you talking about??????????
I don’t understand why everyone is saying how suffern’s D isn’t that good. Kevin Norwin is probably on of the best defenseman in the state, and easily the best in Section 1. McCarron is very close behind Norwin, if not just as good, and Fuchs will be at that level in upcoming years, and this year he has been very solid. Not one team in the section has D like Suffern does, it makes no sense to me why people are saying their defense isn’t that good. Also, Gabriel has been the best goalie in the section this season and their is no doubt about that. Suffern’s D will shut down WP tomorrow.
My Prediction:
Suffern 3 WP 1
Nothing against Willows, solid player. But there is no way he would have even come close in L1 this year to his stats in L2 this year! Last night proves it…CN was up 4 goals against White Plains when CN best defenseman goes off with an injury. Result…CN looses the game 6-4. Not one goal after byrnes left and they (Willows and Shu) gave up 6 UNANSWERED goals. There is NO WAY he could have scored so many goals in L1 if he and Shu were so dependant on one player on D. Maybe if he played on Suffern or Mamo. But then again, he would not have been on the ice in blowout games. Mom and Dad would have been a little upset. Ya think.
To Suff Hock-
Agreed – Suffern has an excellent goalie and D, but the pressure can’t be only on them. The offense has to step up, not only to score but win the battles along the boards and in the zones.
Mountie mom
Willows did have that many points back then but he also had his older brother and both Shumans,might even had had Gellis and Daddio but not sure but that is a big difference
When did anybody credible every say enything negative about suffern’s D?
As for !!!!, If i were to say after you guys lost to WP, “well, Paul ‘the Wall’ must of had a few holes in him tonight,” how many people would jump all over me? Dont act suprised that you try to put down a sophmore doing most of the work alone because he didnt score on the team with the best D in the section.
First off…Intensity and the competition in our local varsity hockey has dropped, But the terrible rankings and obviouse favoritism in the papers still exist.
No one else has goven credit of recongnized the level of skill that the Rams 2002-2003 team had as well as other teams. Record 27-1. On top of not losing until the last game, there were 6 freshman on the roster. Having played that season and others that followed the ranking were not correct. Lastly, the coaches for all the tema should not be tachers.. they dont know the game..they dont know anything about hockey…Travel hockey taught us everthing. Stop trying to take credit for it.