Lysander — Having returned from its Ogdensburg Tournament victory on Jan. 15-16, the Baldwinsville ice hockey rode an eight-game win streak into last Friday’s showdown with Liverpool at Lysander Arena.
For its part, the Warriors had won five in a row, and remembered how close it came to knocking off the Bees 4-3 when they first met on Dec. 1. But B’ville remembered it, too, and used a first-period onslaught to seize control before relying on its defense to do the rest in a 3-0 shutout.
The vast improvement in B’ville’s play since early December was on display during that first period. It attacked hard and peppered Liverpool’s superb goaltender, Steve Kozikoski, with a host of opportunities.
That began to pay off when Josh Racha found the net at the 8:58 mark, the assist coming from Connor Carhart. Less than three minutes later, it was 2-0, with Charlie Bertrand taking his turn finding the net off a feed from Racha, and in the last minute of the period Zach Perez landed an unassisted goal.
Stunned by this early flurry, Liverpool settled down and, starting in the second period, cleaned up its defensive problems, turning away of B’ville’s opportunities as Kozikoski, making a series of point-blank stops, worked his way to 26 saves.
At the same time, though, the Warriors’ attack was stymied. B’ville’s defense piled up the blocked shots, so that Matt Sabourin only had to make 10 saves to keep Liverpool off the board and earn that ninth straight win.
Moving its record to 11-2, B’ville is at Whitesboro Tuesday and hosts Ithaca on Friday, the last games before the anticipated Feb. 2 visit to Lysander Arena by West Genesee, its first since the Bees beat them in last year’s Section III Division I semifinals.
