2019 West Virginia Vipers Middle School State Champions
Vipers Win Middle School State Championship
by Rick Kozlowski -January 20, 2019-Updated January 26, 2019
SOUTH CHARLESTON — The Eastern Panhandle-based West Virginia Vipers middle school team proved to be as golden as the color of their game sweaters over the weekend.
The Vipers returned home as state champions after wins over Charleston and Morgantown on Friday and Saturday, respectively.
“It was awesome,” said Bryce Timberlake, one of the team’s coaches. “It was a great weekend.”
The Vipers downed Charleston 6-3 and Morgantown 3-1.
The middle school squad is in its first season.
“When we started, we didn’t know how many kids we were going to have,” Timberlake said. “We kind of put it together as we went.”
The team grew into a 20-player-strong unit, although not all of them played in the state tournament.
In fact, the Vipers played with just two offensive lines in Saturday’s game after several players had to depart the tournament after Friday’s victory.
In the first game, the Vipers scored three goals on their first five shots.
“We rattled them in the first period,” Timberlake said, “and they never recovered.”
The Vipers scored another goal in the second period and two in the third period.
Brandon Villeaux scored twice in Friday’s win, while Tyler Landry, Josh Kuntz, Jake Lathwell and Logan Gochenauer scored the other goals.
“When we got those three goals, the confidence they got from that, they never came off that high from that point forward,” Timberlake said. “They never got down and kept playing with that same intensity from Friday night on.
“Those three goals gave them the belief that, ‘We can beat both of these teams.’”
One thing that really impressed Timberlake was the play of his third line on Friday as Charleston kept trying to overmatch it by using its top line on the ice.
“Our third line still did well enough to prevent them from getting goals,” Timberlake said.
Lathwell scored the first goal on Saturday and Owen Wilkinson the second goal. Kuntz managed an empty-netter with 14.5 seconds left.
“Jackson Howard, our goalie, and our two lines of defense played lights out,” Timberlake said. “If our goalie and defense weren’t on it, we probably would’ve lost that game. But they never really had one clean shot.
“They did get a breakaway, and our goalie made a {span class=”st”}phenomena{/span}l save.”
There were about six minutes left in the game when Howard came up the important stop.
“Had they scored, that would’ve changed everything,” Timberlake said.
Others who played in the championship tournament included Nick Tisler, Kevin Harris, Will Shannon, Jake Timberlake, Nate Lathwell, Cam Moore, Pierse Happel and Andrew Baker. Other team members include Will Hersey, Gavin Wick, Tommy Rosa, Libby Contrael and Wyatt Arnoult.
Timberlake said the chemistry and teamwork of the Vipers proved vital to winning the championship.
“At this level and above,” Timberlake said, “one guy’s not going to win the game. You can see by our scoring, goals by everyone. Even more important are the assists. All of them were assisted goals.”
They all added up to make the Vipers state champions in the middle school division.