Friday, Jun. 20, 2008

Marcus Featuring Depth at Most Positions

Hockey Journal

By John English

Contributing Writer

The Marcus hockey program was able to field three teams for the summer season -- something that could bode well for the school’s depth come fall.

The Marauders will likely have Varsity Gold, Varsity Silver and Junior Varsity Gold squads this fall, and coach Kenny Tyler said the summer will give him time to determine who goes where.

"We’re about where we figured we’d be," Tyler said. "My team is 1-1-1, and our Varsity Gold is 2-0 ... I think having these teams is real good for next season. You want to see where your competition level is. Marcus had a pretty good season last year. The Gold team lost some games, but it was very competitive."

Tyler is the coach of the Marcus White team, which will be the Varsity Silver team in the fall.

"The depth level of the players is going to be really good," Tyler said. "We really believe that both varsity teams and the junior varsity teams will be much better next year ... we’ve got some juniors and seniors that will not make either varsity team next year."

Marcus White picked up its first victory of the summer season against Carroll last week.

"We played a real defensive game in our zone," Tyler said. "We pushed a lot of their shots to the net wide. There weren’t a lot of shots on goal."

Tyler said he mainly wants the keep his team from getting rink rust this summer and evaluate what he has to work with for the fall season.

"The objectives are to keep the guys fresh and skating as a team," he said. "We just want to keep everyone in shape, and see where our level of skating is for the fall season."

Tyler said his only area of concern so far is a lack of numbers at one position.

"We’re light on goaltenders," Tyler said. "We have a total of five goaltenders on three teams, so we’re pretty thin there. You always want to have at least two goalies per team."

Marcus Red plays Arlington Martin at 5:15 p.m. on June 22 at Euless Green Arena, and Marcus White plays Carroll at 6:30 p.m. on June 22 at Euless Green.

The Flower Mound hockey team got of to a 4-0 start heading into yesterday’s game against Keller Blue, and will face Keller White at 9:15 p.m. on June 26 at NYTEX West arena.