By Samantha Lefebvre
Sports Editor
For the first time in seven years a Buffalo Girls Hockey player has committed to play for a Division I hockey team. Katie Rooney, a soon to be senior at Buffalo High School, has verbally committed to playing hockey at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, N.Y. on a full-ride scholarship.
Katie Rooney verbally committed to play Division I hockey for RPI in the 2013-14 season. (Photo by Samantha Lefebvre)
“It is good for her and it is good for the Bison hockey program,” Buffalo girls’ hockey head coach Ray Dahlof said. “We have had quite a few players over the years go and play Division III hockey, but we haven’t had a lot go and play Division I.”
The last Buffalo girls’ hockey player to play DI hockey was Kathleen Rosso, a 2006 BHS graduate. Rosso went on to play for Minnesota State University Mankato.
Entering her fifth year on the varsity team for the Bison, Rooney has undoubtedly made her mark on the Bison ice.
Last year Rooney scored 55 points, including 30 goals and 25 assists, in the season’s 27 game schedule. Those 55 points brought her career total to 150 points at the end of her fourth season, allowing her to shatter the old school all-time leading scorer record.
“The previous one was 99 or something like that, so she will only add to that legacy this year,” Dahlof said. “Katie has always been a big goal scorer and she has always been either our leading scorer or our co-leading scorer for the last four years.”
Not only is Rooney a consistent forward for the Bison, but she is also a great team leader and motivator with her strong work ethic. She will be captain of the team for the second year in a row this season. It is her commitment both on and off the ice that Dahlof thinks will propel her into the next level of competition.
“She is one of the hardest workers, every drill she just goes full speed and that is why she is so good,” Dahlof said. “She doesn’t slack off on any of the drills, she is going top speed if it is a skating drill. Whenever we do stick handling and puck control drills she is able to do the skills and still maintain her skating speed which is what really makes her such a great player.”
In addition to being involved in the high school program, Rooney also participates in many USA Hockey camps and leagues throughout the year. She also has a rink built into a shed at her house, which keeps her skating after practices and in her spare time. With all that ice exposure one might call her a ‘Rink Rat,’ but in actuality she is well-rounded in other sports and activities at BHS too.
Rooney is on the soccer and lacrosse teams at the high school. She is also an A-Honor Roll student and thrives in her math and science classes. Her love for those two subjects is what mainly attracted her to RPI.
“I had some offers from other schools, but I think it was just the feeling of when I was there that I just felt like I fit in and I could really picture myself there,” she said. “They have everything that I could ever want for a major. I don’t know what I want to major in, but they are really big in math and science stuff and that is my strong suit and that is what I am good at.”
Former teammate Prentice Basten, who later went on to play for the Breck High School girls’ hockey program, also committed to a team out East last spring. This upcoming season, Basten will play for Providence College in Rhode Island, a team that RPI sees in the regular season.
“I played with Prentice all growing up until 10th grade,” Rooney said. “So it will be fun to play her when we are both out East.”
Last year the RPI Engineers posted a 9-21-4 overall record with a 6-14-2 Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC) finish for eighth in the conference standings.
“It is a pretty good program,” Rooney said. “I never really guessed that that is where I would end up going, but when I went and visited there I really liked it. It was a good fit for me.”
Rooney, the daughter of …, will officially sign with the Engineers in November of 2012, but even after that she will still have one more season in a Bison uniform. A final season which she plans to make the best of.
“Obviously the ultimate goal would be to go to state, but we will have to work really hard to get there because our section is not very easy,” she said. “I will do pretty much the same stuff I have always been doing. I will get everyone together and focus on teamwork, because if you are not a team it is never going to happen.”
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