In the course of building a 14-game win streak and ascending to the top of the state Division I rankings, the Cicero-North Syracuse ice hockey team has not required that much good fortune – but a little of it sure proves helpful.
The Northstars relied on one fortunate bounce, plus lots of hard work, to rally past Fayetteville-Manlius, 4-2, in a Division I hockey game Thursday night in a game important for much more than what took place on the ice.
C-NS overcame a 2-1 third period deficit in front of a huge “Pink the Rink” crowd at the Cicero Twin Rinks. All of the evening’s proceeds went to the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund of Central New York.
“It was a hard fought battle between two really good teams,” CNS coach Kyle Bailey said. “It was an emotional night. F-M put on a great event. We were fortunate to be part of it. We were fortunate to get a win. It was a good night all around for Central New York hockey.”
The game came to life in the third period after CNS took a 1-0 first period lead through Connor Doren’s wrap-around goal. After outplaying the Northstars in the second period — the Hornets owned a 12-4 shot advantage — F-M scored twice in a span of 1:48 early in the third.
Tom Doucet scored both of those goals. His first came by tipping home the point shot of Ryan Amidon’s point shot. The next came when Doucet redirected a short range shot past CNS goalie Alex Johnston.
Then came the Northstars’ big break. Midway through the period, CNS defenseman Kyler Schilling simply dumped the puck into the F-M zone from near the red line, but the puck took a strange hop and squirted through Hornets goalie Ben Napierala’s pads.
Suddenly, C-NS had a spring in its step and had an eye for the lead, and shortly after got a huge break when F-M committed two penalties in a span of less than a minute.
It took C-NS only 11 seconds to take full advantage of the 5-on-3 power play. Jesse Farabee took passes from Matt Fiume and Doren and put the puck home with 4:21 left, and the Northstars had a 3-2 lead.
“A few bounces went their way and a couple of bad penalties by our team, that was the difference,” F-M coach Sean Brown said.
“You could say it was lucky but I would say we worked hard,” Bailey said. “Sometimes when you work hard maybe you don’t get a goal, maybe you draw a penalty (but) you draw opportunties for your team. That’s what we did.”
F-M pulled Napierala for an extra attacker with just over one minute left. It didn’t take long for the Northstars to make the Hornets pay. Schilling scored his second long range goal, firing a shot from inside his blue line into the empty net with 47.6 seconds left.
CNS (14-1 overall, 9-1 Division I) got 23 saves from Johnston. The Northstars would return to action Monday afternoon, hosting Central Square to start a busy week that also includes visits from Ontario Bay and Watertown IHC.
