True, the Baldwinsville ice hockey had found itself mostly in a defensive mode during last Wednesday’s game against the Syracuse Cougars at Lysander Ice Arena, but now it was about to change.
Late in the second period, with his team down a goal, Cam Sweeney broke out of his own end with the puck and charged toward the Cougars’ net, having beat all of the Syracuse defenders.
Sweeney got off a clean shot, and though the puck eluded Cougars goalie Alex Moreno’s stick, he grabbed it with the glove before it could cross the goal line.
That was as close as the Bees would get, and in the third period Syracuse put things away with three unanswered goals to prevail 5-1 in this clash of undefeated sides who had not met since the Cougars beat B’ville in last winter’s sectional final at the War Memorial.
B’ville was 4-0 going into the game, but not in the first state Division I rankings of the winter, while Syracuse, who had outscored its first five opponents by a combined 29-5 margin, stood at no. 5 in the state poll.
Yet it was the Bees getting the jump. Just inside the Cougars’ blue line, Quinn Sweeney lofted a puck from the left side that eluded the grasp of Moreno and found the net just 33 seconds into the game, assists going to Mark Monaco and Parker Schroeer.
All that did, though, was energize the Cougars into an all-out attack, tying the game less than four minutes later on Nate Frye’s power-play goal, assisted by Ryan Eccles and Ryan Durand, and then taking the lead for good when Kaleb Benedict converted off a turnover midway through the first period.
Long stretches of the game were played in B’ville’s end, a consistent pressure from the Cougars that the Bees handled well, keeping it 2-1 with hard work from its back line and goalie Tommy Blais, who finished with 28 saves.
Through a scoreless second period, the Bees continued to resist well, giving Sweeney the chance to get that tying goal, but once he was denied, the Cougars got a chance to pull away again.
Renewing its attack early in the third period, Syracuse struck on Frye’s second goal with 13:13 left. Less than three minutes later, it was 4-1 on Andrew Corning’s goal. Benedict returned on breakaway to clinch it with 5:14 to play.
From this initial setback, B’ville would try to rebound Saturday night at Ithaca, but could not do so, taking a 2-1 defeat to the Little Red.
So in the week before the holiday break, the Bees would try to recover from these pair of defeats, hosting CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt Tuesday and going to Ontario Bay Thursday night.
