For the second weekend in a row, the Baldwinsville ice hockey team faced the daunting prospect of two games against state-ranked Division I opponents in a span of less than 24 hours – and in this case, both of them took place away from the Bees’ friendly Lysander confines.
It commenced Friday night, at Meachem Rink, where B’ville, no. 6 in the latest state Division I poll, took on no. 7-ranked Syracuse, and the Cougars, avenging an early-season defeat at Lysander, proved faster and more skilled as it defeated the Bees 3-1.
These two sides had met Dec. 6 in the finals of the Bobby Conklin Memorial Tournament, with B’ville taking advantage of a slew of Syracuse penalties to prevail 4-2. It helped the Bees that the Cougars, normally a fast-starting team, didn’t get anything in the first period of that initial encounter.
But Syracuse remembered that, too, and changed matters just 63 seconds into the first period of the rematch when Andrew Hodgens brought the puck into the Bees’ end and, facing a crowd of defenders, waited for teammate Collin Thompson before passing to him and watching Thompson, from the left circle, fling it past B’ville goalie Matt Sabourin.
It briefly appeared that the Bees would answer the challenge when, just two minutes later, Matt Monaco’s perfectly-timed pass sprung Adam Tretowicz on a breakaway up the middle, and Tretowicz beat Syracuse netminder Sam Walsh to tie it, 1-1.
Yet it was quickly apparent that, while the Bees could make random pushes, it could not sustain pressure in Syracuse’s end of the ice, even when it got a handful of power plays.
The Cougars reclaimed the lead for good with 2:17 left in the first period, when amid a scramble in front of Sabourin, Ryan Lehrer poked the puck in the net.
It stayed 2-1 throughout a scoreless second period. Toward the end of a frame, Sabourin made a series of big stops, keeping it a one-goal margin, while Walsh robbed Tretowicz on a point-blank attempt to prevent another tie.
Then, in a four-on-four situation 1:52 into the third period (both teams had received penalties for missing required equipment), Syracuse’s Sean Eccles took the puck deep in his own end, raced up the open ice past all of the B’ville defenders, and then sent a wrist shot past Sabourin for an insurance goal.
Despite some good pressure late in the game, B’ville could not respond, and now found itself having to turn around, get on a bus Saturday and visit Rochester to face state no. 3-ranked McQuaid.
Predictably enough, the fresher, home-standing Knights handled B’ville 8-2, and the Bees’ overall record fell to 7-4-2, which it looked to improve on Tuesday against Watertown IHC before taking on Liverpool Friday at the Lysander facility they both share.
