There are several things I can say I love in life. My family, my friends, what I do here at Ovathletics, the beach, and hockey. More specifically, I truly enjoy college hockey, BIG Ten. Right up there with college hockey is high school hockey. We are blessed to have a nice group of local teams to enjoy.
If you’re a Pittsburgh Penguins Fan, a Wheeling Nailers fan, or just a hockey fan in general, we have a weekend for you! Right here in our back yard at Wesbanco Arena is the West Virginia State Hockey Tournament.
This year it’s so much more than just a high school state tournament! It is a weekend of hockey heaven. Hats of to the organizers for putting this together for us. It all begins Friday evening at 6:00 pm and lasts until Sunday afternoon with the Wheeling Women’s team, The Lightningbirds, playing Columbus. With a mixture of games sprinkled in throughout the weekend. There is a complete list below with the weekends schedule.
The main focus of the weekend is the High School Tournament to decide who will be the West Virginia State Champs. Charleston, Martinsburg, Morgantown, Linsly, Wheeling Central, and Wheeling Park will compete restlessly to decide who will hoist the trophy at the end of the weekend.
We’re still researching for who the players to watch for both Charleston and Martinsburg are, but we do know this from watching these teams in the past, they will come to play. Usually both teams have a nice mixture of size, speed, and stick skills. If/when we get more information will with edit this, so check back here at Ovathletics.com. Charleston enters as the 6th seed and Martinsburg as the 4 seed.
2nd seeded Morgantown has Ty Edgerton, who happens to be the son of former Wheeling Thunderbirds, Devin Edgerton.
Top seeded Linsly will be led by their captains: The only two year captain and the teams leading goal/point getter Brenden Moore, do it all defenseman and overall superstar Xavier Funkhouser, and Luke Miller. They also have a goalie that can steal a game from someone in Kaden Hiryok. Other notable names are junior Ethan Carlisle and sophomore Matthew Scouvart.
Wheeling Central shows up the 3rd seed spot and will put three senior leaders on the ice. Peyton Hildebrand who has a knack for scoring. Ethyn Taylor who sets the plate, so to speak and Chris Burns who does all the little things a team needs to be successful.
5th seeded Wheeling Park will be led by Team Captain Gian DeGenova and leading scorer freshmen Luke Simonetii. The Patriots will also have strong goaltending by senior Noah Britton.
All of these high school teams have many more great athletes to watch on them. Listing them all would turn this preview into a novel. Go see for yourself who stands out to you this weekend.
The middle school division will also have their state competition this weekend as well. Charleston, Martinsburg, Morgantown, Wheeling Central, and Wheeling Park will compete with each other to decide the middle school state champions. Their schedule is again posted below.
As for the Lightningbirds the new women’s amateur hockey team. Lead by captain and found Rachel Adams, the Lightningbirds will play two exhibition games this weekend. The fist in Saturday at 3:00 pm and the other Sunday at 11:15 am both vs Columbus.
Rachel saw the need for a women’s hockey team in Wheeling. Stating that “girl’s hockey is on the rise, there is a 43% growth yearly.'” Rachel has been playing since she was 5 years old and she’s not alone, there are several other players with years of hockey experience on the team.
Oh, and by the way these girls are kicking butt!!! They are currently undefeated on the season at 10-0, winning their last 2 games vs the Chesapeake Bay Lightning 3-0 and 9-1 respectively. Their next game is away vs Hagerstown, MD February 18th.
Ovathletics.com will do our best to provide updates throughout the weekend. So again, check back here or follow us on our social media platforms. The best thing you can do is to get out and watch some hockey this weekend, It’s definitely worth it!
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