Albion High graduate Carlitos Sanchez helped the Genesee Community College men’s swimming and diving team earn second place honors at the Region 3 championships this weekend.

Sanchez was a member of the winning 200 and 400 Freestlye Relay teams.

He also placed second in the 100 Freestyle and third in the 100 Backstroke.

The Tri County Midget hockey team earned fourth place honors at the Three Rivers Cup tournament held this weekend at Pittsburgh.

Rebounding from an opening round loss on Friday, Tri County defeated the Lexington, Kentucky Thoroughbreds 5-0 on Saturday on first period goals by Josh Gimeli and Josh Wood and third period tallies by Patrick Ricker, Matt Nielson and Aaron Sheflin.

Tri County then lost 7-2 to the Freemont, Virginia Ice Wolves later Saturday and 8-2 to the Viper Stars from Pittsburgh today.  Ricker and Gimeli both scored goals against Freemont as did David Archibald and Nielson against the Viper Stars.

Now at 18-6-2 overall, Tri County begins league playoff competition next weekend.

For the second night in a row, the Roy-Hart/Barker/Medina/Akron Club hockey team defeated Iroquois- Alden by the identical score of 6-1 on Saturday propelling the team back to the sectional club championship title game which they won last year.

This year’s title contest will be Monday evening, February 25th at the Key Bank Arena in Buffalo against ELPS (Eden- Lake Shore- Pioneer- Springville) beginning at 8 p.m.

Once again, RBM was able to combine all three aspects of the game in a winning effort against Iroquois-Alden.

The defense, again led by Tom Paisley (R-H), Colin Dodge (R-H), Jacob Harris (B) and Trevor Crawford (Ak), controlled the back part of the ice, while the excellent  goal tending by Andrew Warner (Tonawanda) stifled the Iroquois skaters the entire evening.

Offensively, RBM took the lead at the 12 minute point of the opening period on a power play goal by Dylan Krzykowski (Ak) with assists by Dominic Peracciny (R-H) and Jason Kuchey (R-H).  Iroquois tied the game shortly after, but Michael Kuchey answered back with a goal giving RBM the lead for good off assists from Peracciny and Dodge.

Two more goals were scored in the second period by Jason Kuchey from Michael Kuchey and Krzykowski and by Paisley from Michael Kuchey and Peracciny.

The scoring in the final period was by Michael Kuchey from Peracciny and Krzykowski, and Drew Marsh (Ak) from Michael Kuchey.

The Albion boys and girls basketball teams will both open Section VI Class B1 basketball playoff competition at home with a doubleheader on Tuesday.

The No. 11 seed Albion boys will open the twin bill at 5 p.m. by hosting No. 14 Alden. The winner will visit No. 6 Newfane on Wednesday.

The No. 6 Albion girls will then host No. 11 Newfane at 7 p.m. The Purple Eagles downed the Lady Panthers twice during the Niagara-Orleans League season. The victor will then face the winner of Tuesday’s No. 14 Fredonia at No. 3 Springville contest on Thursday.

The No. 7 Medina girls will also open Class B1 competition at home on Tuesday as the Mustangs host No. 10 Tonawanda at 7 p.m. The winner will visit No. 2 East Aurora on Thursday.

The N-O champion Medina boys squad is seeded No. 1 in Class B1. The Mustangs will host the winner of Wednesday’s game between No. 9 Fredonia and No. 8 Depew in a quarterfinal contest on Saturday.

The No. 12 Roy-Hart girls will visit No. 5 Akron in Class B2 at 7 p.m. Tuesday. The Lady Tigers downed the Lady Rams twice during the N-O season. The winner will visit No. 4 Southwestern on Thursday.

The No. 11 Roy-Hart boys squad will visit No. 6 JFK at 7 p.m. Wednesday with the victor visiting No. 3 Olmsted on Saturday.

Also in the B2 boys competition, No. 4 Wilson will host a quarterfinal game on Saturday against the winner of the No. 12 Eden vs. No. 5 Southwestern contest.

In the girls B2 playoffs, No. 2 Wilson will host a Thursday contest agains the winner of Tuesday’s No. 10 Gowanda vs. No. 7 Allegany-Limestone contest.

In the boys Class C2 playoffs, No. 10 Barker visits No. 7 Riverside on Wednesday.

Photos by Chery Wertman – Albion’s Bryce Pritchard looks to put up a shot against Buffalo Science defender Ibrahim Osmani during the host Purple Eagles loss to the Wolverines this afternoon.

Ignited by a barrage of eight early threes, Buffalo Science roared out to a commanding 22 point first quarter lead in route to posting a 90-62 win over host Albion this afternoon in a non league regular season ending boys basketball game.

Justin Hunt hit three threes and Vote Wavote and Sean Johnson both had two to help spark the Wolverines out to a huge 36-14 lead at the end of the decisive opening quarter. Johnson had a total of 12 points and Wavote 10 in the stanza.

Albion’s Kevin Hillman puts up a shot as Jeremy Mckitchin of Buffalo Science tries to block.

The Wolverines enjoyed a 26 point, 53-27, lead at the half as Jeremy Mckitchin scored nine, including a three.

The Wolverines, who hit a total of 15 threes on the day, boosted the advantage to 37, 78-41 at the three-quarter mark as Johnson erupted for 16 in the third period including four threes.

Johnson finished with a game high 34 as Wavote had 19 and Hunt and Mckitchin 11 each.

Bryce Pritchard led Albion with 20, including 9 of 10 from the three throw line, as Deyonci Farley and Liam Ward both added 9, Kevin Hillman and Brilliance Johnson  7, Vincent Zona 5, Xavier Cornick 3 and Michael DiCureia 2. Ward had three threes.

The RoyHart/Barker/Medina/Akron Club Hockey team opened defense of their sectional championship Friday night in West Seneca with a 6-1 win over Iroquois/ Alden.

The Akron portion of the team accounted for all of the goals and four of the six assists.

Iroquois scored the first goal of the game, but RBM tied the score on a goal by Nick Wood with assists from Dylan Krzykowski and Drew Marsh (AK).

That was the end of the scoring for Iroquois as the defense of Tom Paisley (R-H), Jason Kuchey (R-H), Colin Dodge (R-H) and Jacob Harris (B) shut them down and the spectacular performance in goal by Tyler Lehan (Grand Island) insured that the game belonged to RBM.

RBM lengthened the lead to 3-1 in the second period on two goals by Krzykowski with both assists going to Kuchey.

The final period was more of the same as both Krzykowski and Wood completed their hat tricks and Marsh and Kyzrkowski both added assists.

The best of three series continues this evening in Lockport with the first game at 7:20 p.m. and another game, if needed, to follow.

The Tri County Midget hockey team dropped a 4-1 decision to the Blue mountain Bears this evening in the opening round of the Three Rivers Cup Tournament at Pittsburgh.

Jake Esposito scored the lone goal for Tri County which will play two games tomorrow and one on Sunday in the tourney.