Tanner McCaffrey had no idea that he would put in one of the most important goals in Baldwinsville ice hockey history.
Yet at the climactic moment Wednesday night, McCaffrey had the puck on his stick after 45 minutes of regulation, 30 minutes of overtime and five rounds of a shootout had not resolved an epochal Section III Division I semifinal between the Bees and West Genesee at Shove Park.
“I could not feel my legs,” said McCaffrey, and neither could most of the other players, having spent 3 1/2 hours skating up and down the ice in an all-out effort for glory.
Tired though he was, McCaffrey skated toward Wildcats goaltender Aidan Procopio, originally planning to shoot left. At the last moment, though, he decided to go right, and lofted a shot that fit inside the top right corner of the net.
Seconds later, McCaffrey’s teammates joined him on the ice in a celebration of a win as memorable as any in the long annals of Baldwinsville athletics, regardless of the sport.
It wasn’t just that B’ville prevailed in what head coach Mark Lloyd called “the longest, wildest game I’ve ever been a part of” in his more than three decades coaching the Bees.
No, it meant a lot more, because B’ville had knocked off West Genesee, the undefeated (20-0), no. 1-ranked team in the state and two-time defending sectional champions, on its own home ice, something few outside the Bees’ circle could have dreamed of when the battle got underway.
True, B’ville took some comfort from pushing WG to overtime in December, but it had struggled late in the regular season and barely got past Mohawk Valley 3-2 in the opening round of the sectional tournament at Lysander Arena Feb. 16.
“We were on a downward slope,”said McCaffrey. “But we all came together, and we knew we could play with West Genesee.”
The first two periods proved that point, for even though the Bees could not convert on two different five-on-three situations, it mostly limited WG’s opportunities and kept the game 0-0.
Then, on a power play with 5:08 left in the third period, Alex Schmidt, with feeds from Mark Monaco and Brendan Wilcox, put B’ville in front 1-0, only to have the Wildcats’ Timmy Winn answer just 34 seconds later.
But that only began things.
Each overtime period in the high school hockey playoffs last seven minutes, 30 seconds. In the first OT, B’ville goalie Jeremy Rappard made several key stops, including one on a Wildcats power play, on his way to 39 saves overall.
“Jeremy is a big-time goalie and he showed it tonight,” said Lloyd.
During the second OT, after a failed Bees power play, Rappard made a sprawling, point-blank glove save on Billy Fisher, who had scored the game-winner in OT the first time these teams met.
Even a break to clean the ice before the third OT didn’t change things, as both teams started to show fatigue in that frame. It almost ended in the first minute of the fourth OT when Monaco’s shot beat Procopio, but clanged off the right post.
When it was all done, it was still 1-1, and it went to a shootout, scheduled for three rounds. Lloyd said that he told his players to relax if they could, difficult given the tense circumstances.
After both teams missed in the first round of the shootout, Schmidt converted, but with a chance to end it, Rappard couldn’t stop Ryan Washo from scoring to make it 1-1, and Isaiah Pompo’s game-winning attempt was stopped.
Two more rounds passed with neither side pulling ahead. Then, in the sixth round of the shootout, Rappard stopped Patrick McDonald, WG’s second-leading scorer, and McCaffrey got his chance to win it – which he did.
Fortunately for the Bees, it will get a chance to rest before going to the Onondaga County War Memorial next Monday night to face Syracuse in the sectional final.
In stark contrast to the drama at Shove Park, the Cougars rolled past Cicero-North Syracuse 6-1 in its semifinal game at Meachem Rink, and of course Syracuse beat B’ville 4-1 on Feb. 12 just before the sectional playoffs.
Now the Cougars and Bees meet again, but whatever the result, this B’ville season will forever be marked by a long night in Camillus where champion and challenger alike proved noble.
