BUFFALO – When West Genesee’s mighty ice hockey program brought home a state Division I championship in 2010, it could not have imagined how long it would take to get all the way back to the top.
But after 14 years of near-misses, heartaches and setbacks from a steady stream of great players, the Wildcats ended that drought in the most emphatic manner possible.
WG roared past Suffern 6-0 in Sunday’s state title game at Buffalo’s HarborCenter, avenging its defeat to the Mounties on this same ice and in this same round exactly one year earlier.
Just to have that opportunity required plenty of patience and poise, as WG demonstrated before and during last Saturday’s state semifinal, a 3-0 victory over Section V champion Pittsford.
First, the Wildcats had to wait just to get on the ice. Suffern and Clarkstown, waging the first semifinal, went well past regulation into a second overtime before the Mounties won it 2-1.
Then, when it got underway, WG would control most of the flow of play against Pittsford, only to have the Panthers keep it out of the net for more than two periods, keeping the game scoreless.
Not until six minutes remained in regulation did the Wildcats move out in front, Liam Burns getting the go-ahead goal off feeds from Ryan Considine and Will Schneid.
That it was Burns who broke through made sense, since he had been denied on at least two breakaways earlier in the game.
“We just had to keep battling,” said Burns. “We knew our shots were going to fall.”
A minute later, it was 2-0, Owen Zoanetti finding the net with an assist to Jared Jaeger. Then Zoanetti earned the assist when Schneid scored an empty-net clincher with 1:55 left.
For the third time in the post-season, Luke Beck recorded a shutout, only having to make 15 saves behind a stingy Wildcat defense that never let Pittsford do too much.
All of this brought WG back to Suffern. Not only had the Mounties denied the Wildcat in the 2022 state final, it prevailed 2-1 in a tight battle at Shove Park late in December.
Matching the total from that regular-season setback, the Wildcats got on the board 9:24 into the first period. Schneid, gaining his 31st goal of the season, assisted by Jaeger and Zoanetti.
Suffern contained things for most of the rest of the period, but with just 14.6 seconds left Schneid took a pass from Burns and broke free again and put home his second goal of the afternoon.
A 2-0 advantage going to the second resonated far more than a 1-0 edge, because of the momentum it provided and a sense that the Wildcats were only warming up.
Also, WG remembered how Suffern had taken over in the game’s middle stages of the 2022 state final, and used its defense to make sure that didn’t happen, only surrendering eight total shots over the course of the first two periods.
And when Michael Hard made it a three-goal margin at the 6:37 mark of the second, it made Wildcats fans feel even more secure, especially with the Mounties frustrated and piling up penalties.
Converting on the power play at the 11:08 mark with assists from Considine and Burns, Schneid completed his hat trick, made it 4-0, and turned the rest of the game into a chance to celebrate, Considine and Burns both joining in with third-period goals to further add to the margin.
Fans and students were already in a jubilant mood by the time the clock hit zero and WG’s players and coaches got a chance to celebrate, too, not just for themselves, but for all the fine Wildcats teams that never quite got to enjoy this moment of ultimate satisfaction.
Four of WG’s stars – Schneid, Burns, Beck and Considine – got All-Tournament recognition, with Schneid the MVP after his championship-game hat trick.
