Eleven months later, the Baldwinsville ice hockey team’s trip to Shove Park had a far different outcome.
And while the Bees’ 5-1 defeat to West Genesee Tuesday night did not carry the same importance as last February’s Section III Division I semifinal, it did reflect how much things had changed.
A season ago, when B’ville endured four overtimes and seven rounds of a shoot-out to shock then-undefeated, state no. 1-ranked West Genesee, it offered one of the brightest moments in the history of the Bees’ program.
Now, though, B’ville only carried a 9-8 record into the game, having just snapped a five-game skid with a Jan. 26 win at Whitesboro.
Meanwhile, the Wildcats, who started 0-3 this winter, had won 12 of 14 games since, only falling to Syracuse and Canton. More importantly, it carried the bitter memory of that loss to the Bees and badly wanted to atone for it.
As always in a B’ville-WG game, it was physical from the outset, the hits as plentiful as the scoring chances. The Wildcats got the only goal of the first period when Dan Holzhauer scored off a feed from Chris Kliberg.
WG doubled that margin to 2-0 early in the second period, only to have a pair of penalties give B’ville a two-man advantage, which it converted as Parker Schroeder got the goal, assisted by Jamey Natoli and Ryan Muscatello.
That was as close as it would get, though. The Wildcats built the margin back to 3-1 by the end of the period and struck twice more in the third period, overcoming 27 total saves from Tommy Blais and Brad O’Neil.
Five different WG players got those five goals – one each by Holzhauer, Joe Comins, Joe McLaughlin, Billy Fisher and James Schneid. Andrew Schneid got two assists as Comins, McLaughlin, Kliberg, Ryan Washo, Jake Kopek and Anthony Felix had one assist apiece. Wildcats goalie Chris Wells stopped 21 of B’ville’s 22 shots.
This was the Bees’ only action last week, as it will finish the regular season this week by hosting Fayetteville-Manlius Tuesday and going to Meachem Rink Friday night to face Syracuse.
