Trojans play ‘blue collar hockey’

In the past, the West Seneca East Trojans were the team making the ‘SportsCenter’ worthy goals with their fast-moving, high-octane offense.

But with last year’s top scorer Danny Flynn and most of their scoring now graduated, the Trojans have adopted a new style of play this season.

“We were a high-flying, run n’ gun offensive team last year,” said West Seneca East coach Phil Prynn after his team’s 1-1 tie with Hamburg on Friday. “We would score pretty goals all night long. But this has to be a ‘blue collar’ team to be successful this year.”

It’s that ‘blue collar hockey’ mentality that brought an overtime win and two come-from-behind ties since Dec. 16th.

On Friday night, West Seneca East epitomized that style out-shooting Hamburg 41-20 until finally breaking through as Connor Mentel hit Hunter Kashuba for the game-tying goal with 24 seconds left in regulation.

“We knew we were going to have to grind it out,” Prynn said. “I’m proud of the way the boys are doing that.”

The new mentality has been the key for the Trojans’ turnaround after losing their first four games of the season.

However, with a tough schedule to start out the year combined with a young roster, it wasn’t exactly unexpected.

The Trojans started the season off with Division III leader Bishop Timon, followed by Kenmore East, and then Division II leader Kenmore West. They fell to Fayetteville-Manlius on Dec. 14th.

West Seneca East had lost a total of 11 players to graduation while netminder Jagger Maving decided to play travel hockey full time this season, meaning, the Trojans were welcoming six new players to their Fed squad.

“We knew we were playing top teams early with an inexperienced team,” Prynn said. “When you start the season 0-4 and we played some really good teams. We told the team ‘just stay the course there is going to be that maturation’.”

Leading that maturation process has been Mentel, a senior who last season split time with his travel team, but this year decided to commit fully to the Fed team.

“He always had the tools but this year you’re seeing a very mature, serious, and competitive version of him,” Prynn said of Mentel. “He wants to dominate his senior year and leave everything on the table. He wants to set the program up for the future. We told him that young guys are looking up to you.”

It’s a responsibility Mentel is taking seriously.

“We have a lot of young guys,” said Mentel, who leads the team with 17 points. “They are going to be the new team. I have to be a captain, be loud, and make them work to the best of their ability.”