Every CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt ice hockey player is thirsting to play a few miles up the road next Saturday at the Onondaga County War Memorial with a Section III Division II championship on the line.
The opportunity to make that happen remained alive for the Brothers after it came from behind Friday night to edge New Hartford 4-3 in the opening round of the sectional playoffs at Onondaga Nation Arena.
Entering the sectional tournament at 10-9-1, CBA/J-D faced a New Hartford side who owned an 8-8-3 record. The Brothers played to a 3-3 tie on the Spartans’ home ice two months earlier, and while both teams had changed plenty since then, they remained on close terms, as the playoff rematch would show.
New Hartford got the jump, bolting to a 2-0 lead on a pair of first-period goals by Luke Jones. CBA/J-D got on the board with Cody Dotterer’s goal in the second period, the only one either side could manage.
Less than four minutes into the third period,. Dotterer returned to net the tying goal, only to have the Spartans go on the power play and back in front, 3-2, when Mike Fiorentino converted.
With the tension building, Lynch Raby found the net to tie it again, 3-3. Miinutes later, Hari Nanthakumar gave CBA/J-D its lone lead of the night – and the only one it needed.
More importantly, the win allowed CBA/J-D to stay at home in Nedrow for the sectional semifinals, where it will face Clinton, who upended Division I National Conference regular-season champion Whitesboro 1-0 last Friday. The winner meets Skaneateles or Oswego in the sectional final.
Fayetteville-Manlius would not make its past reigning sectional Division I champion West Genesee in its opening-round game, overwhelmed in a 13-0 defeat to the Wildcats that ended its season.
When these teams met Jan. 16 at Cicero Twin Rinks, WG prevailed 7-0, and would get a head start on bettering that margin when F-M committed a pair of first-period penalties that each led to power-play goals.
But it got more lopsided in the second period as the Wildcats scored twice more with a man advantage, and then started to hit on even-strength goals so that, by the intermission, it was 8-0, and WG would convert five more times in the third period, overcoming the 44 saves posted by Hornets goalie Brandon Heyman.
Fifteen different players earned at least one point, with Pat McDonald notching a three-goal hat trick and adding two assists, while Dan Colabufo scored twice and got four assists. Chris Peer and Andrew Schneid each had two goals and one assist.
