Newark, PRPC favorites to win Blue Jackets Cup

As seen in ThisWeek News
Wednesday, February 18, 2009

CORY STEGER
ThisWeek Staff Writer

By Adam Cairns/ThisWeek PRPC goalie Jeramiah Holland of Reynoldsburg stops a shot from Newark's Tyler Russell on Feb. 12. PRPC lost 4-2 to finish second in the GCHSCHL standings in the regular season. The Blue Jackets Cup begins today.

The Greater Columbus High School Club Hockey League will have its most open field for the eighth Blue Jackets Cup.

The tournament will be today through Sunday in the Chiller at Easton, except for the championship game Sunday, which will be at Chiller North. If a second championship game is necessary it will be played Monday in the Chiller at Easton.

Last year's tournament is proof that the talent level between the teams at the top and the ones at the bottom is closing. Olentangy entered as the fourth seed but went on to upset the top three seeds, including beating Athens 3-0 as the Braves won their first Blue Jackets Cup.

Olentangy won't return to defend its title as the Braves are competing as a varsity team in the Capital Hockey Conference.

The favorites this year are Newark and PRPC. Newark won the regular-season league title with a 4-2 win over PRPC on Feb. 12. PRPC is a three-time winner and a two-time runner-up in the Blue Jackets Cup.

Newark has traditionally been one of the better teams in the league but only competed for the Blue Jackets Cup once, losing 6-2 to PRPC in the championship game two years ago.

"Our expectations are to continue where we've been going all year," PRPC coach Joe Tonello said. "We've been doing consistently well and been up at the top since the beginning. We want to take the consistency into the cup and get ready for (the Buckeye Cup state tournament)."

PRPC features the league's top two goal scorers in Adam McGrath (18) and Jake Miller (15). Those two are followed by Newark's Sol Parini (15) and Drew Link (13).

A bit of a surprise this season has been the play of Hilliard/Southwest. The Wildcats were one of the streakiest teams last season but first-year coach Jim Jones has steadied the team.

Hilliard/Southwest battled through illness last week with as few as eight of their 19 players showing up for some practices. But Jones said he is not concerned.

"We'll be ready to go. Anybody that was sick or injured we held out of practice so they can be ready for the final stretch," Jones said.

Hilliard/Southwest will look to cut down on its penalties. Through 19 games the Wildcats led the league in penalties (147), penalty minutes (389), penalty minutes per game (20.5) and misconducts (11).

"We're working on getting rid of penalties. A lot of it has to do with the misconducts," Jones said. "We're just getting our attitudes in check and that has helped out recently."

Westerville and Athens have been two of the better teams in the GCHSCHL, but they have struggled at times this season.

Westerville had a five-game winless streak before Feb. 12 but the Warcats are two-time Blue Jackets Cup winners and have considerable tournament experience. Athens lost most of its players from last year's state championship team and is trying to overcome offensive inconsistency. It has just one player, Kevin Deal, ranked in the top 20 in the league in points.

The Northeast Storm is in a familiar position at the bottom of the league standings, but first-year coach Mark Fixari has the team headed in the right direction. The previous three seasons the Storm combined for one league win. This year they earned six victories, defeating each team at least once.

"We've obviously come a long way from years past. We compete in every game now," Fixari said. "There just have been games where we didn't put enough pucks in the net and that's come back to haunt us. We're not playing for anything but to win every game we get in. There isn't anybody here we can't beat."

Led by David Mooney (13 goals) and Alex Ballew (12) the Storm has five players who do the majority of the scoring. Fixari said that has constricted the team at times.

"We lean on five guys to the puck in the net and that has challenged us," he said. "If they don't score that puts a lot of pressure on us. Our defense is good so if we can score three or four goals, we can play with anybody. But we've gone through some spurts throughout the year where we couldn't put the puck in the net."

Winning the Blue Jackets Cup is important because it guarantees a spot in the Buckeye Cup state tournament. Athens, which won last year's Buckeye Cup, finished last (7-13-0, 14 points) in the league this year and will need to win the Blue Jackets Cup to have a chance to defend its state title. The top four teams from the GCHSCHL will advance to the Buckeye Cup, which takes place March 6-8.

"We have a great group of kids here and we expect to go out there and play well," Jones said. "I think we have a group of kids with more of a chance than ever to take (the Blue Jackets Cup)."