Before another winter storm showed up at week’s end, the Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse ice hockey teams had to deal with their own man-made challenges – and had very different outcomes.
For the Warriors, who were 4-7-1 going into the week, the test involved three games in four nights, and it nailed the back-to-back part of it last Tuesday and Wednesday, capped by an impressive 4-1 win at Ithaca where Connor Boland and James Welch led the way.
This was the same Little Red team that, on this same ice, beat C-NS by that same 4-1 margin two nights earlier, yet from the outset found it difficult to put anything past Welch, the Warriors’ eighth-grade goaltender.
Through the first two periods, Welch maintained a shutout, eventually stopping 40 of the 41 shots he faced, and fired up by his heroics, the Warriors broke out in the third period, scoring three times to pull away from Ithaca.
Once again, Boland was at the forefront of that charge, getting three goals for a hat trick, two of them assisted by Matt Gagnon, who also netted his team’s other goal off a feed from Boland.
Just 24 hours earlier, Liverpool hosted Ontario Bay at Lysander Arena and thumped the Thunder 6-0. All of the Warriors’ goals came in the first two periods, Gagnon and Boland each picking up two goals and one assist.
Xavier Springer and John Coggiola also scored, with Pat Langlois earning a pair of assists. Marco Palumbo, Joey Terranova and Tucker Knapp each got one assist as Welch earned the shutout with 19 saves.
The win at Ithaca followed. Then, back at Lysander Friday night, Liverpool hosted Clinton, seeking a third win in four nights, but running out of steam in a 6-3 defeat to that other group of Warriors.
They traded goals early, but Clinton went in front 3-2 by the end of the second period, and then pulled further away as it continually put pressure on Welch, who finished the night with 46 saves.
Boland did all he could, netting one goal and assisting on others by Palumbo and Jack Irwin, while Gagnon got two assists. Clinton had more depth, though, as Antonio Femia (two goals, one assist) and T.J. Eisenbeck (one goal, one assist) led them.
C-NS was fresh off its own impressive 4-1 win over Baldwinsville on Jan. 11 when it ventured to Ithaca. The loss to the Little Red meant that the Northstars were not a happy side when it returned to the Twin Rinks to face Fulton 24 hours later.
Here, C-NS got its attack going again – but still lost, 5-4, to the Red Raiders, who ignored its own 3-6 record going into the game and jumped to a 2-0 advantage by the end of the first period.
Fighting back, the Northstars got goals from Holden Sarosy, Matt Cramer, Tyler Murray and Nate Wagner, with Cramer and Murray also getting assists as Nick Sciore, Logan Ungelich, Dan Quick and Jake Den Bleyker also had assists.
Each time C-NS surged, though, Fulton answered, with Eric Shear and Derek Schumaker each earning two goals and one assist and goaltender Jadon Lee superb all night, recording 43 saves despite allowing nearly twice the shots that the Northstars did.
On Thursday night, C-NS faced Fayetteville-Manlius in the Twin Rinks facility that both programs call home. Desperate to avoid a third defeat in four nights, the Northstars instead lost again, 3-2, to the Hornets.
