More experience should help next year's Fallbrook Roller Hockey team

Joe Naiman

Village News Correspondent

The Fallbrook Roller Hockey team finished 1-9 in the San Diego County High School Roller Hockey Conference, but coach Bruce Craw feels that next year will be different.

"I kind of knew going in," Craw said of Fallbrook's losing season. "So much of hockey goes around our goalie."

Jacob Jett was a sophomore who had returned to roller hockey in his freshman year. He had 12 junior varsity games of experience prior to this season and was expected to be the JV goalie this year.

Last year's goalie, Seamus McClellan, was homeschooled. The San Diego High School Roller Hockey Conference requires that players be affiliated with their team's school, and if McClellan was homeschooled through Ivy or Oasis High Schools he still would have been eligible to play. But the Oasis program was not suitable to McClellan, and he was homeschooled through an independent program during his senior year, making him ineligible for roller hockey.

"When it comes down to education, you've got to feel good about where you're going. That's a lot more important than roller hockey," Craw remarked.

McClellan's decision made Jett both the JV and varsity goalie. "He was the only goalie we had," Craw noted.

Opponents took advantage of Jett's inexperience early in the season, but after losing eight games to begin the season Fallbrook won its only match of the year March 14, defeating St. Augustine in a cross-league game, and Jett allowed only two second-period goals, one on a power play, from 16 St. Augustine shots.

Other than cross-league matches, Fallbrook's games were played at the Fallbrook Sports Park, an outdoor rink subject to rainouts. The Fallbrook team saw five of its games rescheduled due to weather, and those rainouts caused makeup games to be played later in the season, resulting in multiple games during the week and many players missing roller hockey matches for other commitments. "The season was actually pretty tainted," said Craw.

Craw also believes that the North County League, in which Fallbrook played, was the toughest of the conference's three leagues. "You add everything up and it's a poor season," he remarked.

Next year, however, Jett will have one more year of experience, as will many of the other players on the squad. Many of the players on next year's team will have been on the team which won the junior high school championship three years ago. "I feel pretty good about that," Craw said.

Although rain also limited the Fallbrook team's ability to practice, the local rink allowed the players to practice without having to travel to San Marcos as the team had done in previous years. "Now that we have our own rink, our skills can improve and our endurance can improve and our team can improve," Craw remarked.