For the second straight season, the Arlington Cup remains with the Yorktown Patriots.
In an annual all-Arlington end-of-the-season match against the Washington-Liberty Generals in high-school club ice hockey action, the Patriots were victorious, 7-4, at the Medstar Capitals Iceplex. To the annual winner goes the Arlington Cup, which the Patriots now keep for a second year.
The teams are in different leagues, so the match isn’t played until the playoffs are concluded for each squad.
Washington-Liberty (12-2) entered the match having recently won the Capital Scholastic Hockey League tournament title for the second straight time. Yorktown (11-1) lost its only tournament-playoff match in a shootout of the Northern Virginia School League to Briar Woods, after compiling a 10-0 regular-season record and Adams Division title.
“This team had a lot of seniors and they worked together well all season,” Yorktown coach Jeremy Ferrara said. “The team’s goal was to win the league championship, and we could have done that.”
In the loss to Briar Woods, Yorktown was missing eight players for various reasons, significantly limiting the team in all aspects. The Patriots took some consolation from defeating eventual league-tournament champion Langley, 5-0, during the regular season.
In the seesaw all-Arlington clash, Yorktown took a 1-0 lead, then W-L moved in front 3-1. The score was tied at 4 in the final quarter with three minutes to play when Andy Coleman scored with 3 minutes to play giving Yorktown the lead for good at 5-4.
The Patriots later added two empty-net goals.
“We expected a very close game,” Ferrara said. “It was a good end to the season.”
Jacob Kirshner (one assist) and Dillon Segal each scored two goals for Yorktown. Blair Barta and Roger Allenbaugh tallied one each. Barta and Allenbaugh each had an assist. Shane Spadetti had two assists with Noah Robinson and Josh Litterst having one each.
In goal for Yorktown, Jake Levy made 13 saves and Rowan Foose 10.
For Washington-Liberty, Kyle Wilson scored two goals and had one assist and Harry Burmeister and Talin Sidhu each had a goal and one assist. Laura South was in goal.
The Generals outshot Yorktown, 28-12.
“We had some defensive breakdowns that allowed Yorktown to score two quick goals to tie the game at 3 and that changed the momentum,” W-L coach Rob Stewart said.
Other players for Yorktown were Cole Ransom, Taylor Price, Quinn Castelli, Max Whittington, Christopher Ryan, James Gan, Travis Sagusti, Nick DeFalco, Will Colwell, Ethan Amundson and Gavin Spain.
Yorktown won last year’s match by a 5-1 score, after W-L had won the previous two meetings.
NOTE: Yorktown’s undefeated regular season was the first in program history.