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Raiders Sweep Silver Sticks

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By NICHOLAS J.E. MURRAY nmurray@tampatrib.com

The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 24, 2008

Last year, the Raiders Hockey Club advanced all four teams to the final of the Silver Sticks Southeast Regional, and saw its Squirt squad advance to the national finals.

Two weeks ago, the Raiders again had four teams advance to their respective finals. This time, all four won, an unprecedented success for the program based at the Tampa Bay Skating Academy in Oldsmar.

"It means everything to us," Raiders director of coaching Trevor Fahey said. "Our whole training program is based on training and development, so we teach them sometimes to learn to skate when they're 6, 7 or 8 years old, and then still have to train them so they become better.

"At the beginning of the season, one team wasn't doing very well ... I said, 'don't worry, just give us four or five months, let them go through the program with the coaches and by December we'll compete with anybody,' and sure enough they went up there and played awesome."

The Raiders Mite, Squirt, PeeWee A and PeeWee B teams took titles in Huntsville, Ala., with Joey Baez (Mite), Adam Romano (Squirt), J.T. Kilker (PeeWee A) and John Scoby (PeeWee B) named tournament MVPs. All four teams will compete in the Silver Sticks National Finals. Both the Squirts and PeeWee A will compete in Niagara Falls, Ontario, with the Mite team going to St. Clair Shores, Mich., and the PeeWee B team headed to Port Huron, Mich.
Fahey said he thinks the opportunity to play at the national finals will be great for all four teams. He also added since teams from Florida, including the Raiders and the Gulf Coast Flames, have won titles before, more respect is being given when they arrive at national events.

"Florida hockey has really progressed the last five years," Fahey said. "I think last year when Fred Eaton's Gulf Coast Flames team won the national title at the PeeWee level, that really sent a message across the community that some Florida teams can compete at an elite level, so that was a really big step for us."
PONY Baseball Back In South Tampa PONY Baseball will return to South Tampa, after securing an agreement with Tampa Bay Little League to use the Carol Kennedy complex for the Under-14 age division.

The switch was made because in recent years, fewer players were signing up for the junior baseball division. Former Robinson baseball coach Sal Urso said the switch to PONY baseball and its reduced dimensions will give players a better chance to develop than within Little League's structure.

"In the Little League structure the field dimensions change drastically - from 60-foot bases to 90-foot bases between ages 12 and 13," Urso said. "PONY baseball has 80-foot bases for 13- and 14-year-olds, which is a milder transition. And when the field renovation is complete, we will have a like-new field that will be the finest youth baseball diamond in all of South Tampa."

Around $20,000 worth of development is being put into the field to make the transition. Registration for the league begins on Jan. 10 at the complex, and Urso said he believes the location will help bring players out to the park.

"I've been around this area all my life, I was part of the Junior World Series champions in 1985 in Tampa Bay," Urso said. "It's been pretty sad watching the decline of players in the last few years to where we would only have one or two teams come out of the junior league program."
PONY baseball does have a past in south Tampa. The 1975 Colt League (15- to 16-year-olds) world champions came from the South Palomino league. Urso said the League might consider expanding beyond the 13- to 14-year-old division if things go well.

"13-14's was the division we wanted to focus on first," Urso said. "In the future, who knows, we might try to do more than just 13-14."

Local Clubs Ready For Disney Showcase

The Disney Soccer Showcase begins Friday, with local squads taking aim at some of the top teams and clubs in the country.

Hillsborough County United, Strictly Soccer, RSL Florida and the Clearwater Chargers will all be represented at what has in some ways replaced the Tampa Bay Sun Bowl as the pre-eminent holiday tournament. HCU Director of Coaching Kelvin Jones said that originally came about because the Sun Bowl had become so large, it became inconvenient for college coaches to travel from location to location when Disney's event was all housed in one place.

Now the Disney event has expanded to the point where it too uses more than one location. However, with the resources the event has, Jones doesn't expect coaches and teams to start giving the tournament a pass.

"It has become so big, but I don't think Disney will ever lose that because the tournament itself, the fields, the refereeing, the caliber of the clubs that have been showing has been unbelievable," Jones said. "A goal for our team and our club is to make sure we have teams at the Disney Showcase every December, and I've got to believe every club in the country is thinking the same thing."

HCU's boys Under-17 squad, which won all three games at the Raleigh Shootout in its last event, is aiming to pick up where it left off, despite not having had much opportunity to practice together since late November.

"We played unbelievable at Raleigh, and we want to build on that," Jones said. "If we can play the way we played in Raleigh, and coaches watch us play, then we're going to have more local boys playing at big-time schools two or three years down the road."

Nicholas J.E. Murray can be reached at (813) 259-8243.

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