More than two month ago, the Baldwinsville ice hockey team claimed a last-second victory over Syracuse in the finals of the Bobby Conklin Memorial Tournament, little imagining that the Cougars would not lose again in the 2016-17 regular season.
Now, the Bees get another chance at upending the 20-1, state no. 3-ranked Cougars, with nothing less than a berth in the Section III Division I championship game at the Onondaga County War Memorial on the line.
It was set up by the events of the opening round, where Syracuse beat Liverpool 7-2 last Thursday night at Meachem Rink and B’ville, on its home ice at Lysander Arena a night later, leaned on timely scoring and lots of defense to shut out Cicero-North Syracuse 3-0.
In their lone regular-season meeting on Jan. 18, B’ville went to the Twin Rinks and prevailed 5-0 over the Northstars, scoring three times in the first period to seize control and then watching Alex Rose stop all 22 shots he faced.
Now, in the sectional rematch, the Bees again got a quick early outburst as, 16 seconds apart, Connor Carhart’s passes set up two goals, one by Josh Racha, the other by Ben Dwyer as Chris Speelman also assisted on the first tally.
Holding a 2-0 lead going to the second period, B’ville extended it when Ryan Gebhardt, unassisted, put one past Jack Doren at the 10:27 mark. From that point forward, Doren stopped everything thrown at him and recorded 37 saves overall.
Meanwhile, C-NS ended up with the same number of shots it had during that first meeting with the Bees. Once more, Rose turned them back with 22 saves for his second shutout of the Northstars in as many outings.
Now the Bees could turn its attention to Syracuse, who had avenged that lone defeat to B’ville when it prevailed 5-2 at Meachem less than three weeks later, on Dec. 20. Now, the third encounter would break the tie and send someone to the title game Saturday at 11 a.m. against West Genesee or Rome Free Academy.
