The importance of main-taining a balanced diet

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Girls swimming controls Central League for ninth

year in a row

Boys basketball loses late in season, still eyes States

SportsFRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2009

Sports20

Hockey sets sights on back-to-back Flyers Cup championshipsBy Jon Jankowski

Senior Staff Reporter

Junior Alex Smith crashes the net against Penncrest. Conestoga won the game 6-0 and boasts an impressive record, with just one loss.

Evan Pioch/The SPOKE

The Conestoga boys’ ice hockey team has a distinct chance of be-coming Flyers Cup champions this season for the second time in as many years. The boys are off to a strong start in regular season play. The team has suffered only one loss and one tie in 14 games.

“The chances are very good. We have a lot of senior leadership. We have to play tough defense and cre-ate some offensive pressure,” senior Rich Masciantonio said.

Conestoga has total control of the Central League, as the two teams tied for second, Marple Newtown and Haverford High, are well behind in the standings. As a team, Conestoga

has to work on fundamentals, focus on becoming a stronger team and make effective use of the plays they have run through at practice.

“We have returned a lot of of-fense. We scored a lot of goals and started the season off well,” Macian-tonio said.

Conestoga’s only loss of the year came in an exciting 2-1 thriller against Strath Haven when opponent Greg Swinburn scored the game winning goal with 30 seconds left.

“We didn’t play that well. It was the worst game we played all sea-son,” Masciantonio said.

The Masciantonio brothers, Rich and Vince, lead the Central League in points. Junior Alex Smith leads the Central League in goals with 17, and is fi fth in points with 25.

First place in the Central League is an improvement over last year’s third place fi nish. Conestoga will face Strath Haven again today to get revenge on that loss early in the be-ginning of the season. Junior goalie Tyler Mazda has one shutout this year, it came in a 6-0 game against Penncrest.

“[Mazda] has a lot of intensity in games. He rises to the occasion when it comes to game time,” Rich-ard said.

In order to become repeat as Flyers Cup champions, the whole team will have to emanate similar intensity when the Cup begins in March.

Jon Jankowski can be reached at jjankowski@stoganews.com.

By Kurt RohrbeckSenior Staff Reporter

Perfection. It always fi nds a way to be elusive, even for the best of the best.

The Conestoga boys’ basketball team completed one of the most successful regular seasons in recent memory, with a pair of late losses to Lower Merion earlier in the month being the only games separating them from regular season perfection.

It was a tough loss for this group, as they had been the only undefeated team in District I at the time and surely would have loved to hold on to that accomplishment going into the postseason.

But in the midst of the heartbreak-ing late-season loss, let’s not forget the rest of the astounding regular season the boys had.

Led by fi ve senior starters—Doug Jakiela, Robert Scott, Matt O’Hara, Mike D’Angelo and Jake Cohen—who all were a part of the team’s Central League title run last season, one could have easily known that this group was bound for success this sea-son. However, no one was quite sure that they would be this explosive and dominant. The team has been winning its contests by an average of about 15 points per game.

“[At the beginning of the year] we knew we had a lot of talent and team chemistry, but we didn’t exactly know

how good we could be,” Cohen said, as he admitted that he did not expect the team’s undefeated streak to go as far as it did.

As the season began, the Pioneers began with wins over Central League foes and other nearby opponents. Most of these teams proved to be no match for the Pioneers, as they defeated most of their early opponents with little trouble.

Seemingly bored with destroying their nearby foes, the team looked to the West for some new challengers. While most of us were spending our winter breaks at home in cold, snowy Pennsylvania, the boys spent their time in San Diego for a four-day, three-game tournament with teams from California and Washington.

Again, the boys came home with a big zero in their loss column.

“The San Diego trip was huge for us. It brought us together a lot more as a team,” Cohen said.

After another few Central League wins, the boys faced possibly their toughest challenge all season in a trip to Holy Ghost Prep on Jan. 17. This proved to be the biggest challenge for the team at the time, and as time winded down there was a chance that the winning streak was coming to an end.

But Jakiela knocked down a shot as time expired, giving them a 39-38 win and keeping their perfect streak intact.

Cohen said the game was “cer-tainly a wake-up call,” as it made them recognize that they could not take anyone lightly.

And then there were the late set-back against Lower Merion, which cost the team not only its undefeated season but its shot at another Central League title as well.

But while any team would love to be able to say that they are undefeated league champions, the losses to L.M. certainly aren’t the end of the world for the team. Losses are often learn-ing experiences for quality teams, and now the team can focus solely on the District I into the tourney, which begins tonight.

The District tournament marks the beginning of a new season for the team. After coming in as a high seed last year only to get bounced early on, they know for sure that the pressure’s on and they don’t plan on disappointing. There are undoubtedly some spectacular teams out there, especially Chester, who has had a stronghold on the District I title for much of this decade.

But are the boys fazed by their competition? No way.

“We know we can play with anyone out there,” Cohen said, with a level of confi dence that radiates through the entire team.

Kurt Rohrbeck can be reached at krohrbeck@stoganews.com.

Henry Rome/The SPOKE

Senior Mike D’Angelo dribbles the ball around a Lower Merion defender. The boys lost the game in heartbreaking fashion, 46-44.