For a few fleeting moments amid the sold-out din of Onondaga Nation Arena on Saturday night, a terrible thought may have crept through the collective minds of players, coaches and fans of the CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt ice hockey team.
Here were the Brothers, facing Section V champion Victor in the Division II state quarterfinal, and despite controlling most of the game’s action and a big shot advantage, the game was tied.
Worse yet, everyone in the rink knew that Skaneateles, the very team CBA/J-D beat 4-0 in the Section III final a week earlier, had, as an at-large state tournament entry, won its state quarterfinal 3-2 over Pelham.
So, in those dying seconds of the second period, the question had to come up – was the first-place sectional finisher going to stay home for the state “Frozen Four”, and see the runner-up instead have a shot at ultimate glory?
Not if Peter Dziergas and his teammates had anything to say about it.
A hard-earned goal right at the second-period horn broke that tie with Victor, and gave CBA/J-D momentum that it did not give back, leading to a third-period outburst that put away the Blue Devils and produced a 5-1 victory.
This was the capstone of a big sports weekend for both J-D and CBA. These neighbors were set to square off in the sectional boys basketball Class A final a day later, but first they joined together and looked to bash the Blue Devils.
It didn’t happen right away, as the two sides battled through a scoreless first period. CBA/J-D was getting most of the chances, taking eight shots to Victor’s three, but it had to wait for its special teams to step up before it could get on the board.
Early in the second period, Sam Mueller’s penalty put the Blue Devils on the power play. The Brothers killed it off and, seconds later, Mueller, back on the ice, took the puck on his own end and went through all of Victor’s defenders before firing in the game’s first goal.
With 23.6 seconds left in the period, CBA/J-D saw that 1-0 lead vanish when Max Lambert scored. On the ensuing face-off, though, the Brothers took control and fired the puck toward the net, leading to a scramble as the seconds ticked away.
But just as the horn went off, Dziergas got just enough of the puck to slide it past the goal line. Instead of a 1-1 game and all kinds of concerns with one period to play, the Brothers went to the dressing room with a newfound confidence.
Still flying as the final period got underway, CBA/J-D extended the lead to 3-1 on Cole Fowler’s hard shot. Two minutes later, Dziergas was back, converting again to make it 4-1, and Zach Taylor ended the decisive flurry with a short-handed goal not long after.
And it set up that fourth meeting with Skaneateles, to take place next Saturday at 10 a.m. back on the same ice at Utica Memorial Auditorium where the Brothers beat the Lakers in the sectional final. Now, though, the winner gets a shot at the state title against Williamsville East (Section VI) or Lake Placid (Section VII) in the finals next Sunday at 12:30.
