Lysander — It all seemed to be falling into place for the Baldwinsville ice hockey team, riding a nine-game win streak and poised to extend that string to double digits before state no. 2-ranked West Genesee makes its highly-anticipated visit to Lysander Arena Tuesday night.
But then the weather got in the way. And then the Bees got caught peeking ahead to the Wildcats, forgetting about the opponent in front of them.
To start with, it didn’t help the Bees that last Tuesday’s visit to Whitesboro got postponed. This meant that, by the time B’ville welcomed Ithaca to Lysander Arena last Friday, it hadn’t played in a week, something a red-hot team did not want to have.
Having seen the schedule – and ice time – curtailed, B’ville still figured to handle Ithaca, a one-time powerhouse who had struggled through much of the season and had lost 1-0 to Division II Cortland-Homer earlier in the week.
It was Senior Night, and those festivities may have caused a distraction – but it still proved a surprise when the Little Red matched the Bees and then, in the latter stages, moved out in front and held on to beat the Bees 3-2.
In all, 10 seniors were honored prior to the game, including Matt Sabourin, Garrett Gray, Matt Monaco, Matt Metcalf, Andrew Starrantino, David Eckmann, Riley Smith, Charlie Bertrand, Alex Patterson-Jones and Dawson Glitz.
Gray and Monaco would net goals in the first two periods, with Zack Perez adding an assist. What’s more, B’ville spent most of the time controlling the puck, getting plenty of chances to add to its total, but not succeeding against Ithaca goaltender Keane Niday, who had 25 saves.
Meanwhile, the lack of action around Sabourin may have contributed to Ithaca seizing on the chances it did earn. Not only did it answer those early B’ville goals, it went head for good in the third period and held on, seeing Cameron Hartman, Xander Dinopoli nad Duncan McAllister get the goals, with Woocheol Hyun, Michael Sornberger and Louis Webster each getting one assist.
Now the task for B’ville was to get this defeat out of its system before West Genesee arrived and then, whatever happened there, to stay in form when it made up the Whitesboro game on Saturday after going to Fulton Friday night.
