LYSANDER – Within its own circles, the Cazenovia ice hockey team’s 2021-22 season was something out of a storybook.
Reduced to practicing outdoors in freezing-cold temperatures last winter, these same Lakers found itself on the precipice of playing for the Section III Division I championship.
Only Baldwinsville kept Cazenovia from accomplishing this, the Bees topping the Lakers 6-3 in Thursday’s sectional semifinal at Three Rivers Athletic Complex in Lysander.
They were next to each other in the state rankings – Cazenovia at no. 7, B’ville at no. 5, and their records nearly eachoed one another with the Lakers 17-3 and the Bees 17-2-1.
The reason why this game was in Lysander was because B’ville went to Morrisville State IcePlex and prevailed 4-1 in their lone regular-season meeting on Jan. 22.
Exactly a month later, the prize was much bigger – namely, a chance to face top seed West Genesee in the sectional final after the Wildcats ousted reigning champion Syracuse 4-0 in the first semifinal at Shove Park.
From the outset, Cazenovia applied pressure to B’ville goalie Jon Schirmer, yet could not convert. But it did score on Jacob Owens’ goal midway through the first period, a mere 17 seconds after Keegan Lynch converted to put the Bees on the board.
They stayed 1-1 until the 7:01 mark of the second period when the Lakers were on a power play, only to turn it over and see Sam Ciappa, short-handed, drive in and fire a shot past Cy McCrink.
Though it put the Bees ahead to stay, the real damage was done in a brief sequence in the last minute of the period, just after Schirmer left the game with an injury, replaced by Nate Sotherden.
A Cazenovia penalty produced a B’ville power play, and Brayden Penafeather-Stevenson scored on it. Then, on the ensuing face-off, Lynch quickly passed it to Penfeather-Stevenson, who took advantage of an unsettled defense and found the net again.
That was two goals in a span of less than six seconds. Almost in an instant, a close battle had turned into a 4-1 deficit that the Lakers would try to overcome in the final period.
Cazenovia swarmed Sotherden, but didn’t score until Logan Hull did so with 6:51 left – a goal that Ciappa answered on another breakaway just 47 seconds later.
Jack Donlin cut it to 5-3 when he scored on the power play with 4:41 to play, but another man advantage was not converted, and B’ville’s Matt Carner scored on an empty net in the final minute.
Finishing at 17-4, the Lakers will see how many roster moves it will have to deal with the off-season, whether from graduation or moves to junior hockey.
