Fresh off an appearance in the finals of a President’s Day Youth Hockey Tournament in New Hampshire, the Ridgefield Amateur Hockey Association’s Bantam A Lions team began their journey towards the Connecticut Hockey Conference’s Tier III State Championship in Northford, CT on Friday, February 20.
Twelve of the nineteen CT Bantam Tier III teams qualified for the championship tournament, and the RAHA Bantam A’s were seeded first in the American Division of six teams. They earned this coveted top spot based on their performance, 13-2-1, during the 2014-15 CHC regular season.
Ridgefield faced Yale Bantam A, Darien Bantam A1 and Wonderland Bantam A1 in pool play to decide who would advance to the finals. Easily defeating Yale, 7-3, and Darien, 7-1, the Bantams faced a tough opponent in the Wonderland Wizards, and scored with 4 seconds left in the game to break a tie, winning 3-2.
The Lions then faced Wallingford Bantam A in the quarterfinals, a team they had tied in the regular season. This time luck was with Ridgefield and they won, 8-0, to advance to the semifinals and another meeting with Darien. Once again, Ridgefield proved too much for Darien to handle and with a 4-1 victory, the Lions advanced to meet the Wonderland Wizards again in the finals.
In March, the team will travel to Massachusetts to compete in the Bantam Tier III Sectionals.
The team has players from five towns in Connecticut: Ridgefield, Wilton, Weston, Bethel and Norwalk
Pictured: 3rd Row Standing: Coach Mike Schneider, Capt. Braeden McSpedon, Brandon Jonsson, Oliver Frossell, Tommy Lombardozzi, Nicolas Cullinan, Griffin Moore, Daniel Parson, Simon Van Wees, Andrew Hartman, Will Forrest, Asst. Coach Jeff Priano, Matthew Walker
2nd row standing: Jack Pereira, Henry Garlick, Alex Goodman
Kneeling: JR Stauff, David Lamb, Sean Gordon, Owen Luft, Tyler Gordon, Nash Lovallo