Midway through its regular season, the Cicero-North Syracuse ice hockey team stood at 6-2-2, the only side offering a meaningful challenge to West Genesee in the Division I American Conference.
Before seeing its own Optimist Tournament wiped out by last weekend’s Arctic blast, the Northstars first met Watertown IHC last Thursday night at the Twin Rinks and, led by Matt Cramer, wore down the Cavaliers in a 9-0 romp.
Cramer was impossible for IHC to contain as he set a career mark with five goals and tacked on a pair of points, helping the Northstars get further away after it built a 4-0 lead in the first two periods.
Jake DenBleyker often assisted on Cramer’s tallies and finished with four assists overall. He also had a goal, with Nick Sciore and Holden Sarosy each getting one goal and one assist and Rob Mitchell also finding the net. Ricky Reilly also got an assist. Jack Doren stopped all 16 shots he faced.
Quite unlike the good times that C-NS was having, Liverpool kept finding itself on the wrong end of lopsided decisions, as was the case on Dec. 29 when the Warriors lost 8-2 to CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt at Onondaga Nation Arena.
Even though the Brothers jumped out to a 2-0 lead, the Warriors did score late in the first period. All that did, though, was make CBA/J-D angry as it netted three straight goals in the second period.
Despite tallies by Dylan Husted and Bobby Welch, who assisted on each other’s goals, Liverpool could not keep up, struggling without top goaltender Sebastian Jesmore.
Tanner Coleman and Ian Henderson led the Brothers, each with two goals and one assist, overcoming a combined 31 saves from Adam Bleiweiss and Gavin Buza, who took over net duties in Jesmore’s absence.
It got worse last Wednesday night at Lysander Arena, where Liverpool made up a game with Baldwinsville snowed out in late December, and found itself overwhelmed in a 12-1 loss to the state Division I no. 13-ranked Bees.
Carson Ferguson’s goal, assisted by Welch, got Liverpool on the board, and it only trailed 2-1 through one period. But in each of the next two periods, B’ville attacked and converted on a regular basis, scoring five times in each of those periods.
Facing 64 shots overall, the Warriors got 30 saves from Sebastian Jesmore and 22 saves from Gavin Buza. Matt Monaco, with a career-best five assists, led the Bees’ attack and distributed it around to several players as Isaiah Pompo had two goals and three assists, with Parker Schroeder, Jamey Natoli and Anthony Pompo each recording two goals and one assist.
As if all this wasn’t enough, Liverpool was set to face 10-0, state no. 2-ranked West Genesee Friday night at Shove Park before it got snowed out.
