CICERO – Mere moments from having its long and frustrating winter conclude earlier than it ever may have expected, the Baldwinsville ice hockey team managed to find another life.
Casey Gilbert’s dramatic goal as regulation time wound down pushed the Bees to overtime in Tuesday night’s opening-round Section III Division I playoff game against Fayetteville-Manlius at Cicero Twin Rinks, and Michael Gregoire won it 2-1 by scoring in the extra period.
For nearly all of the 51 minutes of regulation, B’ville, the no. 9 seed, was kept away from the net, either through the fine work of Hornets goaltender Chris Finger or by a relentless F-M attack that dominated the game’s middle stages.
But the Bees picked up its pressure in a tense third period, took 13 shots and withstood a late Hornets power play before pulling its own goalie, Nate Sotherden, with 30 seconds left.
Gradually, the pressure picked up, and just as Finger was focusing at the scrum of players in front of him, Gilbert got the puck at the right circle and, with 9.9 seconds left, fired it inside the top left corner of the net.
With all the momentum going into OT, B’ville picked up a power play, and while it wasn’t successful, the attacks that came late in regulation continued.
Just past the six-minute mark, Gregoire picked up the pick inside his own end, drove past center ice and sailed past all the F-M defenders, crossing the middle and then beating Finger for the game-winner.
That it even got this far was largely a tribute to Sotherden, who in the first period stopped all 10 shots he faced as Finger, who had 36 saves in a 3-0 win over B’ville back in December, made 11 saves and kept it 0-0.
F-M took the lead 4:39 into the second when a shot through the crease stayed there long enough for Will Sanzone to poke it in before Sotherden could react.
Here, and for the rest of the period, the Bees were pushed back into its own end on a regular basis, the Hornets doing everything except extend its 1-0 lead all due to Sotherden recording 15 saves.
Ultimately, Sotherden finished with 32 saves, two more than Finger’s 30, and saw his work rewarded by the late heroics of Gilbert and Gregoire. But the Bees would have little time to rest since its sectional quarterfinal game, at Kennedy Arena against no. 2 seed Rome Free Academy, would take place less than 48 hours later.
With the Black Knights, again it was close and low-scoring and, again, it would end 2-1 – but not in the Bees’ favor.
Through much of the first two periods, it remained 0-0, Sotherden and his fellow B’ville defenders managing to turn back everything RFA threw at them and putting itself in position for another playoff road win.
But with just 12 seconds left in the second, the Black Knights’ Tyler Lokker, off a feed from Jackson Marchione, sent a puck toward the net that hit the inside of Sotherden’s leg pad and slowly rolled across the goal line.
Down 1-0, the Bees saw that deficit double with 11:28 left in regulation when, on an RFA power play, Braden Meeks’ low wrist shot went through a screen and past Sotherden.
Brayden Evans cut the margin back to one with 6:28 to play, pouncing on a rebound of Nolan Burlingame’s shot and converting, but the Black Knights held on from there, ending B’ville’s season with a 10-12 record.
