To expect the Syracuse and West Genesee ice hockey teams to replicate the four-overtime epic they waged together on Syracuse War Memorial ice a year ago with the Section III Division I championship on the line might prove too much to ask.
But at least the Cougars and Wildcats will have an opportunity to do so after they both turned back familiar challengers in Wednesday night’s pair of sectional semifinals.
At Meachem Rink, Tommy Rioux’s late goal thwarted a Baldwinsville comeback and gave Syracuse a 3-2 victory. A few miles away at Shove Park, Jeremy Keyes’ hat trick keyed WG’s 4-1 win over Fayetteville-Manlius.
Of the two games, the Cougars-Bees battle turned out to have more drama even though, just two weeks earlier, Syracuse had blanked B’ville 4-0 and had dominated that contest from start to finish.
But B’ville did remember that it beat Syracuse in another 3-2 decision back in the Dec. 7 final of the Bobby Conklin Tournament and, perhaps bolstered by that past knowledge, it played the Cougars to a first-period scoreless draw.
Syracuse appeared to get control in the second period thanks to Ryan Durand, who twice put shots past Bees goalie Brad O’Neill, each goal assisted by Kaleb Benedict, as the Cougars’ shutout streak against the Bees continued, the score 2-0 with one period left.
A minute into the third period, though, Ryan Dickinson broke the Bees’ skid, cutting the deficit in half, and when Luke Hoskin put the puck past Alex Moreno with 6:39 left in regulation, it stood at 2-2.
The though of overtime and an uncertain outcome spurred Syracuse into a furious final charge that culminated with Rioux, off passes from Luke Dwyer and Nelson Jones, beat O’Neill for the game-winner with three minutes to play, the Bees unable to respond even with an extra attacker as time wound down.
By then, the Cougars already knew that West Genesee, in its traditional tough and comprehensive manner, had repeated what it had done in 2019, ousting Fayetteville-Manlius.
WG had defeated the Hornets 2-1 in their lone regular-season encounter, but that was on Dec. 10, and both teams had changed and improved plenty in the 2 1/2 months since, F-M having won nine of 10 entering the contest.
From the opening face-off, F-M’s intent was clear – be physical every time it had the puck and plenty of times it did not. and use its speed to generate opportunities, which did lead to some early chances that the Wildcats turned back.
But when the Hornets took its first penalty of the game, WG immediately capitalized, taking a 1-0 lead 5:32 into the first period as Keyes skated around with the puck and, from the point, fired it past Konrad Walberger.
They remained 1-0 for a while, but when F-M turned it over midway through the second period deep in its own end, Keyes scored again to make it 2-0, a goal the Hornets answered 79 seconds later as John Manzi tipped in a shot from the point, with assists going to Ben Hammond and Will Duncanson.
Late in the period, the Wildcats attacked again, and a shot that Walberger was unable to hold on to got put home by Liam Sexton, the Wildcats taking a 3-1 advantage to the final frame.
Any hopes of a Hornets comeback got shut down by WG’s defense, who limited the visitors to just three shots in those final 15 minutes, even when F-M had a pair of power plays. Keyes would complete his hat trick by earning an empty-net goal with 1:26 left.
