Lazer Blades go from last to first

Mike Sciacca

Nobody, really, expected to hear much from the Lazer Blades during

last weekend’s Campbell Division championships at Coast 2 Coast Inline

Hockey Center in Huntington Beach.

After all, there wasn’t really much of a chance of the division’s

last-place team winning the postseason championship, was there?

Yes, there was.

Christmas came early for the Lazer Blades, who overcame the odds to

shutdown regular season champion, the Menehune, 4-0, in the division

finale Saturday to cap their unlikely run to the crown.

The Lazer Blades broke away from a scoreless first quarter to take the

lead for good on Dimitri Coutsoyannopoulos’ goal off a Max DeVries

assist. They put the match away with a three goal outburst in the third

period, with Alexander Schaffner scoring once and DeVries posting a pair

of unassisted goals.

Goalie Brad Brandenburg got the shutout behind a 25 save performance.

The Lazer Blades also consist of James Gonzales, Parker Miller, Bret

Bonanni, Ty Barbo, Jacob Trani, Swan O’Connell, Michael Godinho, Coach

Bart Miller, and assistant coach Paul DeVries.

* In other championship finals:

WALES DIVISION

Get Up Kids 7, Riptide 2

In another story of going from last to first, the Get Up Kids got up

for the division’s postseason playoffs, and defeated another longshot

team, the Riptide, who entered the playoffs seeded fifth out of six

teams. James Dufour scored his team’s first four goals, E.J. Mason scored

once with two assists, James Coelho scored once, Joe Murphy and Eric

Brazile each had two assists, Mark Kosko had an assist, and goalie Sergei

Sedykin recorded 30 saves. Kyle Bezayiff and Kevin Meyer both scored,

Lotey Kinney and Vance Shaylor each had an assist, and goalie Ryan Turchi

had 27 saves for the Riptide.

JR. HIGH DIVISION

Eagles 5, Spartans 4

Although the division final will be played later this week, the

second-seeded Eagles picked up an important victory as Jonathan Gibo

scored two goals and had an assist, Mike Shuttleworth scored twice, James

Dufour scored once, and Ryan Turchi and Michael Burkhardt each had an

assist. For the third-seeded Spartans, Tim Kraus had two goals and a pair

of assists and Kevin Kraus scored twice.