Story and Photos by Janet Schultz, NYHOL
The first ever Cornerstone Collegiate Showcase has closed and with plans for another to be held next season at Lockport’s premiere ice arena.
Arena Manager Scott Then told NYHOL that many of the players have asked for the event to be held again next year with hopes that even more teams would participate.
The teams are all members of The American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) which was founded in 1991 and is the national association for Non-NCAA Collegiate Hockey throughout the United States. They are made up of more than 461 colleges and university-affiliated teams representing 48 states and 2 Canadian provinces and provide a structure, regulate operations, and promote the sport of Hockey nationwide.
Niagara, Oswego, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), West Virginia University and University of Pittsburgh are all part of the ACHA’s College Hockey East (CHE) division while Miami and Lawrence Tech are members of the Central Collegiate Womens Hockey Association (CCWHA) and Army is an Independent.
The Showcase opened on Friday, September 18 with Niagara University’s ACHA D2 team facing Miami University of Ohio. It was a close game with NU taking Miami 1-0.
RIT lost to Lawrence Tech 5-1 and Pitt dominated Oswego 8-3. At press time there were no scoring reports for West Virginia University (WVU) or Army.
The action continued Saturday with two sets of games. First up was RIT at Army (no score yet); Pitt and Miami a 4-4 tie, Niagara over Oswego 7-0 and Lawrence Tech over WVU 3-1. In the afternoon it was RIT7-0 over Oswego; Lawrence Tech and Pitt a 2-2 tie, Miami 6-2 over WVU and Army beating Niagara 6-3.
Sunday’s games concluded in the morning with Niagara and Lawrence Tech playing to a 2-2 tie; as did Miami and RIT and WVU secured a 7-0 win over Oswego. No report for the Pitt vs Army game.
Niagara’s Alexandria Franke, Jaylan Melcher and Madigan O’Donnell each had a goal in the 3-6 loss to Army. Assists went to Myiah Kastelan (2), Franke and Ella VanHalteren.
Miami reports that in the tie with Pitt Claudia Kettwig, Delaney Burke (2) and Caroline Kelleher had goals. Against WVU it was Kettwig and Charlotte Peabody scoring and against RIT it was Burke and Sophie Zerielli with goals.
In the Niagara vs Oswego game, O’Donnell had her first ACHA goal and Chloe Guagliano had a hat trick. Other scorers in that game were WNY’s Liliann Drzazgowski, VanHalteren, Melcher, Franke, Kastelan and Annabel Cross.
Brooke Kwiecien, another WNY native, had her first ACHA goal for NU in the game against Miami, sher received an assist from Melcher.
In Oswego’s scoring notes Nora Cole had two goals in the game against Pitt and Bernadette Belcher dropped in the third goal. They were assisted by Laura Daves and Kaitlyn McGee. Lindsey Jurgensen was in goal for Oswego.
From reports out of Lawrence Tech. In game one vs RIT, a 5-1 victory for LT, Sophia Buchbeyer had four goals in the game and eight goals on the weekend. Game two saw Goaltender Chloe Lemke stopping 50 of 51 shots in the 3-1 win. In game three Jordyn Bebus had the tying goal and 4 goals and 3 assists on the weekend. I the final game on Sunday, Kathleen Fennessy was noted for her stellar performance and she had one assist on the weekend.
NYHOL noted several of Western New York Girls Varsity Ice Hockey alumni on the ice with various teams including Reese Honadle formerly of Monsignor Martin with RIT; Liliann Drzazgowski formerly of Hamburg, Eden, West Seneca with Niagara; Kayla Buczkowski, Lancaster Iroquois Depew with Niagara and a former Hilbert player Brooke Kwiecien with Niagara.
Isabella Burt formerly of Kenmore/Grand Island plays for the University of Pittsburgh and on the ice officiating was Jersey Phillips (above), a player with Lancaster/Iroquois/Depew. Also Georgia Mango formerly of Clarence/SweetHome/Amherst plays for Oswego.
Photo Album
RIT vs Oswego
Niagara vs Army
Pitt vs Lawrence Tech
WVU v Miami
(Editor’s note: we apologize for not having complete scoring details, but those stats were not provided to media at the time of this publication. Should we receive updates, we will issue an addendum.)
