Though the Baldwinsville ice hockey can prove confounding, frustrating and exhilarating, all in the context of a single game, it could never be called dull.
Following an opening week where it split four games in a five-day span, the Bees entertained Ithaca last Tuesday night – and “entertained” is the appropriate word, as the two sides exchanged blows all night long before exiting the ice exhausted – and even, at 5-5.
During an active first period, B’ville trailed 1-0 and 3-1, but rallied to tie it once on Mike Schneid’s goal and then, after the Little Red tried to get away, notched another goal right before the period ended to make it 3-2.
Flush with momentum, the Bees then blanked Ithaca in the second period and, while doing so, put home the tying and go-ahead goals to seize a 4-3 lead.
Ithaca absorbed this blow and tied it, 4-4, with 10 minutes left, only to have B’ville reclaim the lead 30 seconds later. Then the Little Red rallied again with an equalizer midway through that final frame.
Somehow, through the last seven-plus minutes of regulation and five minutes of overtime, they would remain even, Nick Harper making several crucial stops on his way to 30 saves for the game.
Adam Tretowicz scored twice for B’ville, with Garrett Gray adding a goal and two assists. Charlie Bertrand also found the net as Carson Hayes got two assists. Mike Schneid and Matt Abbott each had one assist. Scott Partington and Eli Gordon led Ithaca with two goals apiece.
Now the Bees hoped to turn to Friday’s game at Kennedy Arena against Rome Free Academy, the team it lost to in last year’s Section III Division I semifinals, but that game got snowed out.
B’ville won’t have to travel next week, though, as (weather permitting) it will host Cicero-North Syracuse on Tuesday and Mohawk Valley, the new offspring of the former Utica Proctor program, on Dec. 20.
