Rivalry Week for the Baldwinsville ice hockey team featured much the same pattern as the season that came before it, with equal parts excitement and disappointment blended in.
The exciting part came in last Tuesday’s game against Liverpool at Greater B’ville Ice Arena in Lysander, where the Bees roared past the Warriors 8-2.
Liverpool has gone through a season-long struggle, only 2-12 going into the game, and B’ville made it worse, steadily working its way to a 6-0 lead through two periods before easing up late.
Remarkably, those eight goals came from eight different players. Steve Schneid, Brian Burlingame, Andrew Tiner, Ronnie May, Matt Zandri, Kevin Cullen, Chris Reiser and Ron Bertrand each took turns putting shots in the net.
Parker Ferrigan, with three assists, set up those scoring plays as Bertrand came up with two assists. May, Burlingame, Cullen and Zandri each got single assists.
All of that changed, though, when defending state Division I champion West Genesee showed up Friday night and methodically worked its way to a 3-0 shutout of the Bees.
Rarely could B’ville put together a sustained attack, as it recorded just 15 shots against the vaunted Wildcat defense, most of them long-range efforts that WG goalie Jacob Pelton routinely kicked away.
Chris Johns, for his part, was superb, earning 35 saves. Still, WG notched all of its goals in the first two periods as Nick Holzhauer, Cody Ryan and Travis Wager converted.
Entering the last two weeks of the regular season, B’ville, at 6-4-1 in Division I (7-8-1 overall), has 13 points and sits in fourth place, easily in playoff position. It would play Solvay Tuesday at State Fair Coliseum before hosting Ithaca Friday night.
