Peconic Hockey's 10U, 12U Teams Continue Hot Starts

The Peconic Wildcats 10-and-under hockey team continued its torrid run in Tier-III league play of the Long Island Amateur Hockey League this past weekend. After defeating the Great Neck Bruins, 19-2, on Saturday morning, the Wildcats defeated the Long Island Enforcers, 9-1, on Sunday morning. Both games were played at Buckskill Winter Club in East Hampton.

The 10U team is 9-0 in league play and currently sits in third place with a number of games still to be played this season.

“Really, what we tried to do is have them play as a team,” head coach Jason Craig said after Sunday’s win over the Enforcers, who are based mainly out of Freeport. “Lots of passing, and I feel like that’s been the difference maker between the teams that we’re playing against. We’re just keeping the puck away from them and there are a couple of assists on every single goal we’re scoring. What’s typical at this level is individual effort, not a lot of assists, one kid kind of does all of the scoring. We’re really trying to discourage that and encourage the passing, which will help us as a team, but will also help those kids as they advance next year.”

Grady Craig led the offensive outburst on Saturday with four goals, but every Peconic player scored at least once. Hunter Harrington and James Petrocelli each scored three goals and Cam Minardi tickled the twine twice. The Wildcats outshot the Bruins, 28-7.

Grady Craig and Hunter Harrington each scored a pair of goals on Sunday. Cam Minardi scored a goal and assisted on three others. Evan Goldstein had three assists and Luka Pisano scored a goal as well. The Wildcats once again kept possession of the puck, outshooting the Enforcers, 26-6.

“Our emphasis is we try and play possession-based hockey. We encourage the kids to play it almost like soccer, keep the puck away from pressure,” Craig explained. “What’s typical at this age is they get the puck, they shoot off the boards. It’s almost like a game of ping pong.”

What’s key to the team’s success also is skating. At the 10U level, being able to skate well gives that individual player or overall team that much of advantage.

“We do a lot of skating in practice,” Craig said. “The kids who have been doing it longer and are at practice, the more you can see they’re a little more advanced than the other kids. Probably half of our practices, whenever we’re practicing, is skating based. And we’ve had a couple of power skating sessions where we’ve had an expert come in and teach that, too.”

The top four teams in each tier advance to the playoffs, and although there is still over a month to go for that, Coach Craig feels his team can qualify.

“We were really impressed with our team this weekend, in particular, because the teams we were playing were the weaker teams, which could sometimes lead to kids going for goals,” he said. “Instead, they stuck to the game plan, tried to have the defense get it back, regroup, come back as a team. With a few exceptions, I felt like we did that throughout the two days and scored a ton of goals because of that.”

Brody Hart, Cam Minardi, Evan Goldstein, Mateo Vergara, Anthony Cappiello, Hunter Harrington, Phoenix Utsch, Stefano McCourt, Gabriel Sarocky, Luka Pisano, Grady Craig, James Petrocelli and Chris Rocco make up this year’s 10U team.

The Peconic Hockey Foundation is based out of Wading River, but very much calls the South Fork home with home rinks at both Buckskill Winter Club in East Hampton and the Southampton Ice Rink. The program began with 8U, 10U and 12U clubs, and this year added 14U and 16U teams.

In fact, Peconic has a pair of 12U clubs. It’s 12U “Blue” team is its tournament-bound program, and head coach Brendan Goldstein said one of the most exciting parts about the team is watching it grow.

“In the beginning of the year, the kids basically get a handful of ice slots from August, September and October, and you go from skating maybe one day a week in those three months to in December, January, February and March where you might have a Friday morning practice and/or game, and then games on Saturday and Sunday,” he explained. “So now you’re skating a minimum four to 14 times a week and that really is the best possible training you can have for a hockey player.”

A perfect example of how far the team has come was just this past weekend. The first time the 12U Wildcats played the Dix Hills Hawks, they lost by quite a bit. But in the second game, they only lost by a single goal. On Saturday, the Wildcats got the best of the Hawks, beating them, 5-4, on their home ice at Clark Gillies Arena in Dix Hills.

The 12U Wildcats have played well enough to be able to qualify for the sectional tournament — the first-ever Wildcats team to do so — and that will be played in a few weeks in Newburgh. If they can survive the single-elimination playoff, they will qualify for the state tournament. Following that, the team has the LIAHL playoffs, which the team is expecting to make.

This year’s 12U Blue team is made up of Lydea Orent, Jacob Fritz, Mikey Kessler, Nate Jacobsen, Benjamin Lundqvist, Alex Jablonski, Sonny Perello, Lincoln Witt, Kevin Mills, Paulina Wojciechowski, Fritz Keber, Ryan Rauscher, Enzo Magnotta, Connor Krikau, Christian Krikau, Dino Lisica and Max Goldstein.