| Tuesday: Penn Yan Wins in Westerns |
June 1, 2004 -
 Penn Yan was the single Section Five winner in the Western Regionals of the New York State Tournament with a 8-4 win over Section VI  Class C Champion, Gowanda on Thursday night at Canisius College in Buffalo. The Mustangs used their "Penn Yan run" in the second quarter to score as four different players scored within a minute and a half to take a 6-1 lead. Gowanda scored two quick goals late in the third to take the game to 7-3 but strong defense by the Mustangs, including six saves by freshman goalie, RJ Wickham and defensive team play that kept Gowanda's premiere scorer, Preston Lay out of the score book made the difference. Lay finishes his high school career leading the State in goals with 360. Penn Yan moves on to Syracuse on Thursday to play Lafayette (19-3) of Section III who trounced Whitney Point 19-8 in play at Binghamton. Lafayette, ranked 2nd in the NYSSWA Poll beat the Mustangs in a close 7-5 game early in the season. The semi final game will be played at Coyne Field at 5:30 on Thursday.
Orchard Park of Section Six scored the first goal and led by as much as three goals, but the Braves of Canandaigua, who finished an undefeated regular season was not ready to give in. Closing in at the end of the last quarter, junior attackman, Aaron Manzer tied the scored at eight with 43 seconds left and it looked like overtime for the New York State Western Regional game as Canisius College in Buffalo.
"I thought we were going to win for sure when we tied it," Manzer told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. "We really thought it was our season."
Orchard Park's Andy Behm won the next faceoff and moved the ball to Mike Bartlett who ran the ball behind the goal and found himself one on one with junior midfield, Tyler Emery. With just the smallest of shooting room Bartlett took a bounce shot that beat sophomore goalie, Dan Serafine with only 0:14 left in the game.
Canandaigua ends it's great season at 19-1. Orchard Park (19-2) will face West Genesee in the State semi finals at Coyne Field on the Syracuse University campus on Thursday night at 8:00 pm.
In the Class B game, Amherst beat Brighton, 13-5 at Canisius in the Western Regional contest. Amherst dominated in the face off stats as Amherst's junior middie, Kyle Burton won eight of ten face offs in the first half and helped his team take an 8-1 half-time lead. Senior middie, Mike Pizzuto scored 5g-2a for Amherst (18-3) who will face Corning East (18-0) on Thursday at 3:30 at Coyne Field. Mike Ryerson scored 2g and Colin Davis and Zach Davis had 1g each for Brighton (12-7) who finishes it's season with it's first Sectional Championship. |
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