BUFFALO – A 12-year quest to return to the pinnacle of Division I ice hockey has consumed the West Genesee Wildcats, who many times have come close to adding to the state championships it won in 1990, 2001 and 2010.
But a fourth state title would again prove elusive as Suffern, the Section I power perched atop the state rankings all season, rallied from a two-goal deficit to defeat the Wildcats 5-2 in Sunday’s championship game at Buffalo’s HarborCenter.
This was WG’s first state “Frozen Four” appearance since 2016, when another Section I team, Mamaroneck, prevailed 1-0 in a tense championship game with a controversial ending where the Wildcats thought it had scored the tying goal late in regulation, but it was not given.
To earn its place in the final this time around, WG first had to gain some satisfying payback – which it did on Saturday when it edged Section V’s Victor 1-0 in the state Division I semifinal.
When these teams had met on Jan. 13 in suburban Rochester, the Blue Devils had prevailed 5-3 by scoring a pair of third-period goals. That was one more than both sides would get in their playoff rematch.
Defenses would settle in early, working through a scoreless first period. Then a string of penalties gave both WG and Victor a string of second-period power plays, but neither side could convert.
In particular, the Wildcats were frustrated as three different man-advantage opportunities were squandered, leaving the game 0-0 heading into the third.
Given yet another power play, WG worked it around until Jeremy Keyes, from the right side, passed it to an open Jared Jaeger at the left post, who easily put it past Victor goaltender Max Pitts.
Only 23 seconds had elapsed in the final period, which meant that the Wildcats had 16-plus minutes to protect its one-goal margin from everything Victor would throw at them.
Just like it had done late in the Section III final against Baldwinsville, WG’s defense came through, Ryan Considine and Ryan Kemp deflecting away chances as goalie Dylan Desena stopped all nine shots he faced in the final period, 23 overall.
It was the Wildcats’ third playoff shutout, counting its 4-0 win over Syracuse in the sectional semifinals and a 7-0 romp over Ithaca in the regional round.
And it all led to the title game against Suffern, with whom WG had faced off in many memorable showdowns in state tournaments past and had sat at no. 1 in the state rankings all season.
If the Wildcats had conceived an ideal start, it could hardly gone better than the first period did, with Desena again making several key stops in the early stages.
Then Keyes, WG’s senior captain, converted at the 11:12 mark. Less than three minutes later, Jaeger, off a feed from Ryan Stratton, sent a wrist shot that trickled past the glove of Suffern goalie Pat Nolan and past the goal line.
With that 2-0 advantage, the Wildcats took a season’s worth of confidence into the second period, only to see the Mounties completely turn things around.
Just 1:14 into the period, Collin Nolan converted, cutting WG’s margin to one. Ryan Schelling, who assisted on that tally, stepped up at the 6:59 mark to beat Desena for the tying goal.
And Schelling wasn’t done. At the 10:16 mark, he put in his second goal, assisted by Nolan and Ben Burns, and Suffern had a lead it would not relinquish.
WG’s best chance to turn it around came with a five-on-three power play that bridged the second and third periods, but the Mounties were able to keep the Wildcats from tying it.
A few minutes later, on a breakaway, Wyatt Levy skated his way through three WG defenders up the middle, went right and beat Desena up top to make it 4-2.
Ayden Greenberg added an insurance goal with 4:41 left and the Mounties finished out its first run to a state championship since 2012 while, at the same denying, denying the Wildcats, who completed its season at 19-4.
