Fairport Wins Third Straight Title
June 2, 2022 - Pittsford and Fairport have faced three times in the Sectional Championship over the last seven tournaments. In each of the last seven years at least one of them has been present in the finals. When they faced last year, Fairport won in overtime but tonight, Fairport won again (their third straight) with an 8-3 win over the Panthers. Face-off midfielder Joey Giggie dominated at the draw and finished the game with two goals. He was named Class A All 
Tournament MVP. Joining Giggie from the Red Raiders were Kyle Gould, Billy Meagher, defenseman Matt Buttarazzi and goalie McLean Ralston. For the Panthers, midfielders Ben Steingass and Avery Valenti joined defenseman John Santowski and goalie Nolan Dehan. Both goalies had strong performances throughout the game. Ralston recorded 8 saves for Fairport and Dehan recorded 7 saves for Pittsford. From the semi-finals, Paul Chiariello (McQuaid Jesuit) and Chase Petschke (Rush-Henrietta) were named to the All Tournament Team.
The Red Raiders came out to win. Giggle scored the opener only 8 seconds into the game when he picked up his own ground ball and took it straight to the net. This wasn’t that only time in the night that Giggle scored straight from his own face off. Just over a minute later, Fairport added their second goal with an impressive set up. Both Chase Rizzo and Brendan Riley ran cuts across the face of the goal. Riley ran the higher cut and passed the ball down to Rizzo for the goal. They kept the lead for another five minutes before Pittsford got on the board. The Panthers scored their opener during man-up with Avery Valenti assisting Ben Steingass. The final goal of the quarter came with 2:18 left on the clock. Beginning with a dead ball to the left side around GLE, Kyle Gould drove on hard and forced a slide. He then found Jake Koonmen wide open in the center of the field with no secondary slide. Koonmen finished into the back of the net and gave the Red Raiders the two goal lead going into the second quarter.
In the second quarter, the first eleven minutes were a lot of back and forth. Both teams were taking chances on offense and testing the defense and both goalies. Pittsford goalie, Nolan Dehan recorded 4 of his saves during this period. Both goals of the quarter came in the final minute of play. Pittsford scored first at 0:35 remaining. James Cook scored with a single drive from the right flat. On the next face-off, Giggle repeated his faceoff fast-break from earlier in the game with another goal after grabbing his own ground ball and taking it straight down. Fairport took the 4-2 lead into halftime.
In the third quarter, Fairport again scored the first goal of the quarter. Less than a minute into play, and during extra man offense, Fairport scored with a feed from the wing to the crease. Kyle Gould scored on the crease with the feed coming from Jackson Monte. Five minutes later, and after surviving their own man-down situation, Fairport scored again. Riley took the ball from the a high sweep along the restraining box and finished into the back of the net from mid range. On the ensuing faceoff, Giggle grabbed the loose ball and ran downfield. It looks to be his third fast-break of the night; however, his shot went wide to the right. The Red Raiders kept the ball for another two minutes before Pittsford took control and finally got a shot at the cage with under five minutes on the clock. At this point, Fairport led 6-2.
The last three goals of the game were all scored in the final three minutes of the third quarter. Fairport scored back to back with Meagher scoring after grabbing the loose ball after a save. Eighteen seconds later, Gould scored off a fast-break from the defensive side of the field. The final goal of the game was scored by Pittsford with Luke Fliss assisting Valenti during double man-up with 0:41 left in the quarter. The final 13 minutes of play were scoreless; although both teams had shots at the cage during the final quarter. Fairport stalled out the last three minutes on offensive and did not give Pittsford a last minute chance at the cage.
Fairport moves on to play in the State Tournament starting on Saturday. The will play Clarence at Williamsville East at 12:30. [BOX SCORE] - - More images in the photo gallery.
