Make that seven consecutive Section III Division I championships for the West Genesee ice hockey team, and four consecutive titles won at the expense of Rome Free Academy.
The Wildcats’ latest conquest of the Black Knights, a 3-1 victory in Saturday’s sectional final at Utica Memorial Auditorium, included a crucial second-period scoring outburst and a defense that, once again, protected a lead once it was attained.
Head coach Frank Colabufo, finishing his 20th season at the Wildcats’ helm, said the feeling of gaining a championship is never a routine one, no matter how many take place.
“It never gets old,” he said. “Every one is harder than the ones before it. These kids have an incredible work ethic and trust in what we are teaching them.”
The fact that it was done against RFA again, made it even sweeter. Everyone knew the history the two sides shared, having met in the last three sectional finals, each of them won by the Wildcats, on this same Utica Auditorium ice, by one-goal margins.
RFA, absent a championship since 1991, riding a six-game win streak and no. 3 in the state Division I rankings, was desperate to finally finish on top, knowing that to do it would mean ending the state no. 1-ranked Wildcats’ 22-game unbeaten streak.
If anyone set the tone for WG, it was goaltender Henry Burns. At least three times in the first period, he had to make point-blank stops, robbing J.T. Entelisamo and then twice thwarting Justin Hussey as the Wildcats struggled to get any attack going.
“We knew that RFA would come after us early,” said Colabufo.
But when WG went on the power play, it didn’t take long to go out in front. At the 11:58 mark, Matt McDonald’s shot got deflected by Derek Farrell past RFA goaltender Devin Hart, and the Wildcats had the 1-0 lead it took until overtime to attain the only time these two sides had met in the regular season Jan. 17 at Shove Park.
Burns said that, once the Wildcats got that early goal, it could relax and play its own style, and not just react to what the Black Knights were doing.
Given that the Wildcats had 11 shutouts on the season, any kind of lead was important, and WG set out in the second period to add to it, nearly doing so when David Procopio’s wrap-around shot went inches wide and, short-handed, Nick Mellen clanged a shot off the right post.
Though those shots didn’t go in, they did set the table for the game’s decisive 28-second outburst.
At the 5:41 mark of the period, Aaron Jones pounced on a loose puck deep in RFA’s end and jammed the puck just over the goal line to make it 2-0. Before the Black Knights could regroup, Procopio, at the 6:09 mark, put home a shot from the right side, fed by passes from Mellen and Ryan McDonald.
Trailing by three goals, RFA took its time-out. WG didn’t mind, because now it could play completely on its own terms, attacking when the opportunity presented itself, but remaining sound on the defensive side to make sure the Black Knights didn’t climb back into it.
Burns said those goals from Jones and Procopio took all kinds of pressure off. Still, RFA got on the board with Tyler Williams’ goal at the 12:29 mark of the second period in a four-on-four situation, and it took Burns making another terrific glove save to keep it a two-goal margin going into the second intermission.
With yet another championship in sight, WG killed off two Black Knights power plays early in the third period, leaning on Mellen, Collin Kobuszewski and the rest of its vaunted defense to protect its lead, constantly getting in the way of Black Knights passes and shots, and often icing the puck when that didn’t work.
It got physical, too, with WG’s Corey Raaflub and RFA’s Keegan Richie injured in the final period, but did not lead to the fight that marred last season’s post-game activities. Instead, Burns, who finished with 21 saves, turned away some more shots, assuring that another sectional championship was heading to Camillus.
With this win, WG advances to next Saturday’s Division I state quarterfinal against the Section V champion, Greece Thunder or Fairport, at Shove Park, which starts at 7:30. The winner of that game returns to Utica Auditorium for the March 8-9 state final four.
