No conditions were attached, no apologies or invisible asterisks required, when the Syracuse Cougars ice hockey team laid claim to its first Section III Division I championship.
Syracuse’s 4-2 victory over Baldwinsville Monday night in the sectional final at the Onondaga County War Memorial required every bit of the Cougars’ toughness as it led most of the way and deftly withstood all of the Bees’ attempts to catch them.
“It’s great to finally come out on top,” said Syracuse senior forward Bryan O’Mara, who scored two goals.
Head coach John Purcell, who had seen his Cougars teams drop sectional finals to B’ville in 2015 and West Genesee one year ago, said he felt happiest for O’Mara and goaltender Jack Klawitter, seniors who had gone through both of those previous title-game disappointments and were instrumental in making sure it didn’t happen again.
Before this, Syracuse had cruised through the sectional tournament, handling Fayetteville-Manlius and Cicero-North Syracuse by equal 6-1 margins in its first two playoff games.
But the entire post-season had turned on Feb. 21 thanks to B’ville’s four-overtime, six-shoot-out round win over unbeaten, state no. 1-ranked West Genesee at Shove Park in the sectional semifinals.
The open question going into this title game involved the Bees’ stamina, and whether the five days following that epic in Camillus was sufficient time to recover and get ready for Syracuse.
And even though the Cougars handled B’ville 4-1 two weeks earlier at Meachem Rink, it knew that winning this time around against the Bees would not be as easy.
“They’re tough to play against,” said O’Mara.
A wild opening sequence got the Cougars get in front 2:39 into the game on O’Mara’s goal, assisted by Hugh White, only to have B’ville’s Isaiah Pompo answer 19 seconds later. Syracuse immediately regained the lead at the 5:11 mark with Philip Zollo converting off feeds from Ryan Eccles and Zach Delaney.
This was followed by Klawitter stopping B’ville shoot-out hero Tanner McAffrey on a solo breakaway while the Bees were short-handed. Purcell said this save was a spark for his team, and a turning point.
B’ville needed to kill off two different Syracuse power plays to keep the margin at 2-1 going to the second period, but the Cougars’ lead doubled at the 4:03 mark when Nate Frye’s shot from the left circle got tipped in by Ryan Durand, situated at the net.
Though under attack for most of the period, the Bees kept the Cougars from adding to that lead and then pulled back within one, 3-2, on the power play when Mark Monaco, at point-blank range, converted off a pass from the wing by Alex Schmidt.
Going into the third period, Purcell said the key to maintaining the lead was spreading out from end to end and challenging the Bees at every turn, keeping them from open ice.
Handed another power play in the opening seconds of the third period, the Cougars didn’t waste this one as O’Mara scored for the second time, Eccles and Jack Grooms getting the assists.
For the rest of the game, Syracuse deftly protected that margin, its defense at its strongest down the stretch as a sectional title was secured.
Now Syracuse heads into the state tournament for what it hopes are two consecutive weekends spent at Buffalo’s HarborCenter.
On Saturday night at 7:30 in the Division I regional final, the Cougars face Section VI champion Niagara-Wheatfield, the Falcons having dethroned reigning state champion Williamsville North 2-0 in its sectional title game. Whoever wins comes back to that same downtown Buffalo rink for the state “Frozen Four” on March 10-11.
