Irish stay positive despite losses

After opening with two victories, the Dublin Scioto High School hockey team has endured a 16-game winless streak to drop to 2-14-2 overall.

During the slump, the Irish have lost twice by 10 goals and seven other times by at least five.

Yet defenseman and forward A.J. Levell said his team has made great strides in comparison to last season, when the Irish went 0-26-2, were outscored 177-28 and lost 15 games by six or more goals.

Levell points to his team's losses to Hilliard (7-4 on Dec. 12), Jerome (3-0 on Jan. 2) and Coffman (5-0 on Jan. 3) as evidence that the Irish are more competitive. Last week, Coffman was 10th in the state poll and third in the district poll.

"We haven't won recently, but we're hanging in there and competing a lot better against some of the better teams on our schedule," Levell said. "Last year, teams like Coffman and Jerome could beat us pretty easily, but we can hang with those type of teams this year."

Scioto's top three scorers are Fran Filice (15 goals, 14 assists), Taylor Capps (12 goals, 13 assists) and Levell (14 goals, 10 assists). After those three, no other Scioto player has more than six points.

Filice was Scioto's leading scorer with nine goals and six assists last season.

"Those three guys have already scored more points than our whole team had last year," coach J.J. Stallsworth said. "Those guys play up top, but also drop back and play some shifts on defense, too. Five of our guys are playing hockey for the first time in their lives, so we're counting on our more experienced guys to play a lot of minutes and be leaders."

Scioto's lineup should be bolstered by the return of three key players in the next few weeks.

Capps, who missed the previous three games because of personal reasons, should be back for the Toledo Ottawa Hills MLK Tournament, which will be held Friday through Sunday at the University of Findlay.

Defenseman Andy Lee, who missed Scioto's last two games while attending a funeral, also will be back for the event.

Forward Chris Akins is expected to make his season debut Jan. 23 against Upper Arlington. Akins is ineligible to compete before then because he wasn't enrolled in the required amount of core courses this semester.

With only 11 skaters available, Levell said fatigue was a large factor in a 5-0 loss to Upper Arlington last Sunday. The Irish were trailing 2-0 after two periods, before the Golden Bears blew the game open in the third period.

"We had only two forward lines this weekend since we were missing so many guys, and we just got worn down," Levell said. "We hung with Upper Arlington, but we got tired in the third period and lost."

Stallsworth is optimistic that the Irish will snap their losing streak this weekend.

At the tournament, Scioto will face Ottawa Hills on Friday, and both Cincinnati Elder and Akron Hoban on Saturday. A final and consolation final also will be held on Sunday.

The Irish beat Elder 10-4 in a scrimmage on Nov. 16 and lost to Hoban 4-0 on Nov. 30.

"Most of the rest of the teams left on our schedule are at our level," Stallsworth said. "We've got a lot of our tougher league opponents out of the way, and we've got some players coming back, so I think we can start turning our season around this weekend."

At a glance

Below are the recent results and coming schedules for the Coffman, Jerome and Scioto hockey teams:

COFFMAN

*Last Friday -- Defeated Olentangy Liberty 4-3. Chris Ridgway scored two goals, Jordan Edmonds and Kevin Putnam had one and Alex Rogers had 19 saves.

*Last Saturday -- Def. DeSales 2-0. Ryan Cohagen and A.J. Early scored and Nathan Schuman had 12 saves.

*Last Sunday -- Def. Olentangy Orange 4-1. Sam O'Brien, Andy O'Brien, Jared Nagel and Ridgway scored. Putnam had 10 saves and Colin Eberhart had five.

Saturday -- At Chiller North vs. Worthington Kilbourne

Sunday -- At Chiller North vs. Toronto (Ontario) Upper Canada College; At Chiller North vs. Cleveland Benedictine

Of note: The Shamrocks are 16-3-3 overall and 8-0-1 in the CHC.

JEROME

*Last Friday -- Def. Gahanna 3-1

*Last Saturday -- Def. St. Charles 2-1 (OT). Joey Nahay and Kurt von Zychlin scored and Wes Faulkenberry had 20 saves.

*Last Sunday -- Def. Worthington Kilbourne 6-2. Justin Young scored two goals and Trent Iffland, von Zychlin, Casey Worth and Chris Beeler scored one. Josh Howell had 19 saves.

*Jan. 23 -- At Chiller North vs. Olentangy

Of note: The Celtics are 12-6-1 overall and 7-1-1 in the CHC.

SCIOTO

*Last Friday -- Lost to Olentangy 12-2. A.J. Levell and Fran Filice scored.

*Last Saturday -- Lost to Thomas Worthington 4-2. Filice scored two goals.

*Last Sunday -- Lost to Upper Arlington 5-0

Friday -- At University of Findlay vs. Toledo Ottawa Hills

Saturday -- At University of Findlay vs. Cincinnati Elder; At University of Findlay vs. Akron Hoban

Of note: The Irish are 2-14-2 overall and 0-9 in the CHC.

*CHC game