The Anaheim Ducks Inline Scholastic Hockey League (ADISL) has branched out this season to include a Junior High Division to go along with its already-popular long-running high school division.

The junior circuit is proving to be just as popular with players in the younger age group.

READ OUR FEBRUARY 2018 ISSUE

ADISL coordinator John Paerels reports that the league has increased membership by two teams from the fall to the winter seasons.

“The winter season has started off well,” Paerels said. “We’re up to eight teams, with both Hewes Middle School and Lakeside Middle School splitting into two squads. Teams are playing an unbalanced schedule, with majority of games against teams in same tier.”

Plans are to face off the winter season playoffs on March 30; the spring season will start just a week later on April 6.

By bringing the junior high school division under the ADISL umbrella, the goal is to further the transition of players into the high school division.

Lakeside Middle School feeds Woodbridge High School while Hewes Middle School feeds Foothill High School. Rancho Santa Margarita Intermediate School feeds Trabuco Hills High School while Isaac Sowers Middle School feeds Edison High School. Jeffrey Trail Middle School feeds Portola High School.

Winter wars

The winter season faced off Jan. 19. The eight teams currently competing include two teams each from Lakeside, Hewes and Sowers middle schools and one team each from Jeffrey Trail Middle School and Rancho Santa Margarita Intermediate School.

Lakeside I, Hewes Blue and Sowers Black comprise Tier 1 while Jeffrey Trail, Rancho Santa Margarita, Sowers White, Hewes White and Lakeside II comprise Tier 2.

In games played through March 9, Lakeside I topped the Tier 1 standings with a 6-0-0 record, followed by Hewes Blue at 6-1-0 and Sowers Black at 3-4-0.

Jeffrey Trail led the Tier 2 standings with a 6-2-0 record, followed by Rancho Santa Margarita at 5-2-0-1, Sowers White at 1-4-1-2, Lakeside II at 1-6-1 and Hewes White at 1-7-0.

Philippe Lalonde of Lakeside I topped the midseason scoring table with 17 goals and 20 points, followed by Trevor Connelly of Hewes Blue with 10 goals and 16 points.

Hewes Blue’s Seth Harer (14 goals, one assist) and Lakeside I’s Tyler McGowan (eight goal, seven assists) were tied for third in scoring with 15 points each.

RSM’s Nick Woods (13 goals, one assist) and Lakeside I’s Francois Devillers (eight goals, six assists) each were tied for fifth place with 14 points.

Ethan Valentine of Hewes Blue and Timo Schmitt of Lakeside I led all goaltenders in the division with 3.00 goals-against averages.

Player of the month

Lalonde earned recognition as the ADISL’s Junior High Student-Athlete of the Month for January.

Currently in seventh grade at Rancho San Joaquin Middle School, Phillipe has played in the Junior High League at Irvine Inline since he was in second grade, having started skating at age 3 and playing hockey at age 5. According to his coach, Phillipe shows great leadership during practices, on the bench during games, and in the locker room.

Besides his junior high inline team, Phillipe also plays on the AKS inline club team and the Junior Ducks Pee-Wee 05 AAA ice team. In one tournament last spring, by scoring a crucial overtime goal in the quarterfinals he helped his West Coast Selects ice team reach the semifinals as the only remaining North American team along with three Russian teams. As a result, he was named the 2005 (birth year) West Coast Selects Ice Hockey Player of the Year.

On the academic front, Philippe earned straight As in all classes during his first semester at Rancho San Joaquin. Besides ice and roller hockey, he enjoys competitive swimming, track and field and downhill skiing, and has also played flag football and soccer.

Championship feeling

Six teams participated in the ADISL Junior High Division’s inaugural fall season, which wrapped up with championship playoffs Dec. 15 at Irvine Inline.

Playoff champions were determined in two tiers.

Second-seeded Hewes pulled off a 7-4 upset win over top-seeded Lakeside to win the Tier 1 championship while fourth-seeded Jeffrey Trail erased a 5-1 deficit early in the third period to prevail by a score of 7-6 over Rancho Santa Margarita to capture the Tier 2 title.

“Once we established that there were clearly two tiers of teams and were able to skew the schedule to allow for more games against comparable teams, the majority of the games were competitive and both championships were exciting, well-played games,” Paerels said.

Each team played 10 regular-season teams. Lakeside, Hewes and Sowers Black each finished with 7-3 records to create a three-way tie for first place.

Jeffrey Trail finished in fourth place with a 5-5 record, followed by Rancho Santa Margarita in fifth place with a 3-7 record and Sowers White in sixth place with a 1-9 record.

The top three teams formed core of the Tier 1 playoffs while the bottom three teams formed the core of the Tier 2 playoffs.

In the first playoff game, Rancho Santa Margarita defeated Sowers White by a score of 9-2 to advance to the Tier 2 championship game.

Marcus Kammerer led RSM with five goals in the elimination win over Sowers White while teammates Trevor Goins (two goals, one assist) and David Razon (three assists) each picked up three points.

Razon and Goins opened the Tier 2 championship game with goals to stake Rancho Santa Margarita to an early 2-0 lead. Kammerer then ripped off a second period natural hat trick to boost the RSM lead to 5-1.

Jeffrey Trail then proceeded to rack up six unanswered goals to take a 7-5 lead in the third period. Thomas Vidal led the comeback assault with a pair of goals while Michael Lai, Ryan Le, Brennan Gee and Logan Kim each scored single goals. Kim and Gee also picked up assists in the Jeffrey Trail goal spree. Kim was credited with the game-winning goal.

Vidal led the Tier 2 champions with three goals in the game while Pete Gonzalez picked up the win in the net for Jeffrey Trail to improve to 2-0 in the playoffs.

Kammerer finished as high point in the Tier 2 final with five points (four goals, one assist) and finished the two playoff games with 10 points (nine goals, one assist).

Due to scheduling conflicts, the Tier 1 preliminary-round playoff game could not be played, with Lakeside and Hewes advancing to the championship game.

Kenzo Nakazawa scored 3:20 into the first period to stake Lakeside to a quick 1-0 lead but Hewes responded with six unanswered goals to power ahead 6-1 on the scoreboard early in the second period.

Nakazawa broke up the Hewes scoring streak to make the score 6-2, but Mason Miller followed with an unassisted goal to put Hewes ahead 7-2 at the end of the third period.

Lakeside scored the only goals of the third period but could not avert the upset loss in the Tier 1 championship game.

Miller finished the game with two goals and two assists to lead Hewes in scoring while Connelly recorded a hat trick, Cohen Krudwig collected two assists. Andrew Rieth was credited with the game-winning goal while Valentine recorded the win in net.

Nakazawa led Lakeside with a hat trick.

Miller finished as the season’s point-scoring leader, including playoffs, with 23 goals and 13 assists for 36 points. Wallace Stirbu of Sowers Black finished second in league scoring with 28 points (20 goals, eight assists), followed by Nakazawa with 27 points (20 goals, seven assists) and Lakeside’s Lalonde with 26 points (18 goals, eight assists).

Kammerer finished fifth in league scoring with 23 points (20 goals, three assists). Miller led the league with 4.0 points per game.

Lakeside’s Schmitt led the league’s goaltenders with two shutouts while Hewes’ Valentine led the league with eight wins.

Photos/ADISL

— Phillip Brents

(March 10, 2018)