It Looks Like Irondequoit and Canandaigua in Class B
March 21, 2012 -
Preseason 2013 - In a change from tradition, SportsFive will not be publishing individual preseason reports for each of the teams in the section this year. Instead, we will be focusing our efforts on a larger scale. To that end we have written articles based on the three classes and those teams and players that are returning to each class. We 
contacted each of the head coaches for each team and asked them to submit their thoughts on their team and the classes in general. Each head coach was asked to rank their toughest opponents, top players, and the top teams in each of the three classes.
Class B is for schools with between 650 and 1049 students and there are nine teams playing this season. The largest school in the class is McQuaid Jesuit with 988 students (doubled due to single gender enrollment). The smallest school is Eastridge with 754 students. With the exception of McQuaid Jesuit (GRALL) all the teams in Class B are Monroe County league teams; Spencerport, Churchville-Chili, Victor, Brockport, Irondequoit, Canandaigua and Brighton.
With thirty-six head coaches responding to the Class B portion of the poll, Irondequoit was the unanimous leader as all the coaches ranked them at one of the top three programs in the class. Canandaigua finished with a solid second (33 votes). Churchville-Chili finished with twenty-two votes and Victor finished with eleven votes. The defending Champion Eagles are once again the team to beat in Class B. Irondequoit won the 2012 tournament with six goals from graduated senior Briele Caples to defeat Canandaigua 11-9. The Eagles eventually lost in the State Finals to Garden City, 11-4.
On paper the Eagles seem to have lost quite a bit. They graduated ninety-one percent of their points (337/369) and have only one player returning with over ten. Senior midfielder Joel Roemer finished last season with 5g-6a and is the highest returning point scorer for Irondequoit. The Eagles also graduated their starting goalie (Eric Fischer- Binghamton). Senior Alex Shoemaker returns after seeing 55 shots last season (60% saves) and they return excellent long poles in Sam Lopez and Eli Kenney. Coach Whipple will look to Dan Pignato and Ben Brooks to contribute to the scoring. Over the summer Irondequoit picked up the ninth highest scorer in Section Five, senior attackman Raymond Shalvoy. After East Rochester dropped their program at the end of 2012 Shalvoy moved to the Irondequoit school district and he will play for the Eagles this season. Shalvoy finished last year with seventy-three points as a Bomber as he looks to transition into the Irondequoit program.
Canandaigua will return five players with over ten points. Leading the scoring is senior midfielder Dan Lacrosse with thirty-five. Junior attackmen Brian Feldman and Eric Munn both finished last season with twenty-one points for the Braves and will be key players this year. Leading the defensive charge for Canandaigua will be senior goalie Michael Cuciti. He finished last season with 186 saves (57.4%) and will continue playing next year at Nazareth. The Braves have four other players with college commitments: midfielder Connor Moore (St. Rose), sophomore defenseman Michel McClain (Penn State), Dan Lacrosse (Colgate) and senior defenseman Zak Bussey (Mercyhurst).
Churchville-Chili returns with the highest point total in Class B with 152 points with five players returning to their roster. A large number of those points came from junior attackman Trevor Hodgins who was the eighteenth highest scorer in Section Five and the third highest in Class B. Hodgins finished his second impressive year with the Saints with fifty-seven points (38g-19a) last season and sixty points (30g-30a) in 2011. He was named to the second Team All Section List and plans to play for Ohio State in two years. Sophomore attackman Ryan Cosgrove (20g-16a) also returns for his second season. Between the pipes, the Saints will look to junior Mike Yehl. He was the back-up goalie last season and played in ten games (seven games with a full half experience). He will look to continue his success this season.
Across Class B there are a number of other players to watch this year. Victor lost a good piece of their scoring to graduation with leading scorer John Maloney (Albany) and leading assister Mitch Rupp (Potsdam) both graduating. However, the Blue Devils have four players with over ten points from 2012. Returning are senior Roy Young (34 points), junior midfielder Luke Bartkoski (13pts), senior attackman Kyle Haslinger (10pts) and sophomore middie Sam Byassee (12pts) who made a verbal commitment to play at Maryland in three years. Spencerport senior attackman Matt Kaser (Binghamton) returns after leading the Section last season with 110 points. Eastridge senior attackman Anthony Coffaro finished with sixty points last season. He is the second highest leading scorer returning to Class B. Brighton returns the highest number of players with over ten points. Six Barons combined for 144 points (second highest in Class B). Leading the list for Brighton are seniors Casey Kopp and Alex Ballatori. McQuaid Jesuit will look to senior Joe Hanna (37 points) and defenseman Luc Bailey (Ohio State) this season.
