Even as things got rough for the Cicero-North Syracuse ice hockey team throughout the latter portion of the 2017-18 regular season, it still held on to second place in the Division I American Conference standings.
Because of that, the Northstars were able to earn itself home-ice advantage in the opening round of the Section III playoffs, an honor it had no intention of squandering.
In front of a friendly crowd at the Twin Rinks last Friday night, C-NS faced the third-place finisher in the National Conference, Rome Free Academy, and rode Jake DenBleyker’s big night to a 3-1 victory over the Black Knights.
If that looked familiar, it was because, two months earlier, these same teams had met on this same ice and the final score had gone 3-1 in C-NS’s favor that night, too.
Even the game pattern exactly resembled the first meeting, with RFA only able to net a single goal in the second period and the Northstars converting once in each period.
And just like that December encounter, DenBleyker put the Black Knights away. The first meeting had included a hat trick, but here DenBleyker settled for scoring twice and assisting on the other goal, by linemate Matt Cramer.
Plenty of others helped out, from Carter Wisely picking up a pair of assists to single assists from Rob Mitchell, Dan Quick and Logan Ungelich.
And while Kyle Lubey put RFA on the board in the second period, the Northstars did prove far more stingy in allowing shots than in the first game with the Black Knights. Jack Doren only had to make eight saves, contrasting the 29 saves from Black Knights goalie Ethan Siderine.
This puts C-NS into Wednesday’s sectional semifinal at Meachem Rink against Syracuse, who handled Fayetteville-Manlius 6-1 to get this far. Shut out by the Cougars 4-0 in January, the Northstars would seek payback in order to advance to next Monday’s sectional final at the War Memorial.
On the other side of the sectional Division I bracket, Liverpool had to go to Shove Park to face undefeated, state no. 1-ranked defending champion West Genesee, and got overwhelmed from the outset in a 6-2 loss to the Wildcats.
These teams had met just one week earlier in Camillus, and the Warriors kept WG off the board until the second period of a 4-0 defeat. Here, the Wildcats reached that four-goal total before the first period was over.
In fact, it was 5-0 through one period and 6-0 before the Warriors broke up the shutout with two late goals by Connor Boland – one unassisted, the other assisted by Jack Irwin.
Under siege through most of the early stages, Gavin Buza still picked up 24 saves. WG’s Dan Colabufo had a three-goal hat trick, all of them assisted by Patrick McDonald, who also found the net twice.
WG advanced to face Baldwinsville in the sectional semifinals as Liverpool’s season concluded with a 4-16 record.
