Carbonaro brings home hockey trophy

The District 24 hockey trophy will be spending the next year at the Robert W. Carbonaro School. It was a team from that school that came out on top in the second annual sixth-grade Holiday Hockey Tournament, held last week in the William L. Buck School gymnasium.

Six teams, two from each of the district’s elementary schools, participated in the double-elimination tournament. For the 10th and final game of the evening, it was the Robert W. Carbonaro 2 team against the Brooklyn Avenue 2 team, a rematch from the seventh game which was won by Carbonaro 7-0.

Carbonaro did, in fact, win the rematch 3-0 to remain undefeated and bring the trophy to the school. It spent the last year in the front display case at the Buck School, which won last year’s inaugural tournament. Buck Principal Mark Onorato turned over the trophy to Dr. Lisa Conte, his counterpart at Carbonaro.

The six players on the winning team were Jason Bowden, Luis Dono, Christina Fessler, Alyssa Pellicane, Ryan Rizzo and Osbourne Traill. They were coached by their phys. ed. teacher, Faye Egre. “It’s a great-group of kids,” she said. “They really worked together and communicated with each other.”

Egre said the students had three Tuesday morning practices before the tournaments. She said because Carbonaro is the largest school in the district, there is the greatest demand for its gym meaning the hockey players had precious spare moments to use it for practice.

Games were seven minutes long at the Dec. 16 hockey tournament, and dozens of parents, teachers and students packed the stage to watch. Daniel Sciglibaglio coached the Brooklyn Avenue School teams and Joseph Mangini worked with the Buck students. Philip Testa, a phys. ed. teacher at all three schools, said he had no rooting interest and just wanted to see everyone have a good time.

That they did, and even students on the teams that were eliminated had a blast. Stacey Charles, who was on one of the Buck School teams, said she and her teammates practiced hard. “The fun part was being here supporting our school,” she said. “We tried our best and we had fun.”

Amir Khan, from Buck, who scored five goals in his team’s five games, said he enjoyed meeting sixth-graders from the district’s other schools. And Alex Levy, who plays roller hockey with a league in Lynbrook, said he enjoyed playing one of his favorite sports at school.

Jamie Dominique, who plays ice hockey in Port Washington, echoed those sentiments. “I enjoyed that I got to play hockey with all my friends,” he said. “I had fun.”