By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
Former rivals are now teammates and hopefully that will lead to success for the West Windsor-Plainsboro High ice hockey program.
The teams from WW-P North and WW-P South have merged into one program this season. South coach Laurent Lassance and North coach Andrew Ferencevych will be co-coaches for the program. Last year the Pirates finished 2-23-1, while the Knights were 6-16.
“WW-P will look to compete for the Valley Division crown this season,” Lassance said. “WW-P has a strong balance of forwards and defensemen this season and expect contributions from all four lines. We will be led up front by seniors Jeremy Wong, Adam Lohr-Pearson, Gordon Sine, and Jonathan Nestel, along with juniors David Corell, Sam Parris and Tyler Shankoff.
“Defensively, the team will be anchored by senior Nikolai Yershov and juniors Daniel Wang and Kevin Doody. We should be able to compete with any CVC team on a nightly basis this season.”
In addition to the veterans, key newcomers to the team include sophomores Tianyi Peng and Amir Umarov, as well as freshmen Aiden Crichton and Senan Shannon.
Princeton Day School returns most of its roster from the team that won the state prep championship a year ago.
“With the majority of the squad returning, the foundation is in place to build off of last year’s success and tackle the challenging schedule in front of us,” PDS coach Scott Bertoli said. “All six defensemen and our starting goaltender return, so we expect to be deep and strong on the backend. Offensively, we’ll look for bigger contributions from the likes of (Ian) Zyvith, (Ryan) Lisk, (Russell) Freidman, (Jack) Mascali and (Keith) Asplundh to balance the attack.”
The Panthers return senior goaltender Logan Kramsky and that should help lead a strong defense.
“He kept us in many games last year against the top teams on our schedule,” Bertoli said. “The team plays with a ton of confidence in front of him.”
Tyler Coffer, a junior forward and last year’s leading scorer is back, along with versatile sophomore forward Coby Auslander. Key newcomers include sophomore forward Ty Eastman and freshman forward Cade McLaughlin.
The roster at the Hun School continues to change but the Raiders still have the same high hopes for success.
“There has been a fairly big roster turnover from the past couple years and I think it has brought some fresh energy to our program,” Hun coach Ian McNally said. “We will try to compete for a playoff berth in our first season with the MAHL and are looking forward to our game against PDS played at Baker Rink this year.”
Captains Blake Brown and Tanner Preston will provide leadership along with Kyle Mandleur, who also returns for the Raiders.
“Blake and Tanner will tag-team the captain duties and look to step out of the spotlight of some of their previous classmates who have moved on over the past two years,” McNally said. “Kyle will look to contribute offensively in a big way here in his second year.”
Newcomers of note include goaltender Jackson Cole, forward Eddie Evaldi, defenseman Hayden Watson, forward Bryce Tolmie, and forward Guillaume Hebert.
“Jackson will start in net for us as a freshman, and fellow ninth graders Evaldi and Watson will be leaned on right away to contribute on the score sheet,” McNally said. “Tolmie and Hebert, both Canadian, are new upperclassmen in the school this year and will be highly sought after to help with French homework.”
Princeton returns a solid nucleus and has added some key newcomers for the season.
“We are very excited about the group we have this year,” Princeton coach Terence Miller said. “We have a great senior class mixed with an influx of some talented new players, along with a big freshmen class that should make for a successful season. We expect the CVC to be competitive again this year and we have scheduled some tough non-conference opponents to challenge ourselves.”
Brendon McCormick returns as the Little Tigers’ captain, while Tooker Callaway and Eamon McDonald are back as assistant captains. Goaltender Sawyer Peck is back, as are other key players Anthony Trainor, Justin Joyce, Max Garlock and Nathan Podgalsky. The key new players include Pascal Meier, Nick Ashcroft, Aiden Trainor, Ryan McCormick and Rocco Salvato.
