Benaquist, Glynn lead West Seneca East to opening night win

WEST SENECA - Unlike other schools, West Seneca East didn’t have a tournament to get ready for the opening of the 2012-13 Western New York Varsity Hockey Federation season.

Instead, their first game of the year was a league game against Lew-Port.

While the Trojans came out a little jittery, they still got the job done as Michael Benaquist scored twice and Sydney Glynn made enough saves in her varsity debut to earn a 4-3 win Monday night at the West Seneca Ice Rink.

“That was their third game and this was our first and I don’t think we were well conditioned,” stated West Seneca East coach Daniel Goldie. “I was concerned at some of the effort put forth by some of the guys”.

Lew-Port jumped on West Seneca East early as Joe Dimunda tapped in a rebound over five minutes into the contest.

The Trojans would answer as Bill Shaffer tied the score at 1-1, before Benaquist would give the Trojans the lead for good toward the end of the first period.

The second period saw both teams trade a pair of goals. West Seneca East made it 3-1, two minutes in to the second, as Chris Alberti scored his first of the season. Lew-Port would cut the lead to 3-2 as Michael Bridges poked a rebound past the sprawling Glynn.

The Trojans, however, would regain its two-goal lead as Benaquist would score his second of the game.

Once again, however, Lew-Port would cut the lead to one, right before the end of the period, as Zachary Sorture scored on the power play.

Sorture picked up the rebound and easily deposited the puck in the back of the net.

While Glynn had a pretty good game over all, even she admitted she needs to be able to control the rebounds.

“She did well,” said Goldie. “There were a couple of times I felt she could have controlled the rebounds better and could have come out and played the puck. But, that is something that we will have to work on with her.”

Lew-Port had a golden opportunity to tie the game late in the third period, but the Trojans were able to kill off a 5-on-3.

“They really weren’t organized, I thought, on what they wanted to do,” said Goldie. “They called that timeout, which gave our main guys a breather so we could kill it off. Which was key.”

Coverage of the Federation will continue Thursday as reporter Charles Roberts will be at the Northtowns Center for the game of the week.