ONONDAGA COUNTY – Parked at no. 14 in last week’s state Division I rankings, the Cicero-North Syracuse ice hockey team would get back-to-back games against the area’s top two large-school teams.
It started last Saturday at the Syracuse War Memorial as the Northstars faced state no. 1-ranked West Genesee, the team it tied 3-3 late in December at Shove Park largely on the basis of Trevor Smith’s 40 saves.
Remarkably, the result of the rematch would exactly match the original, ending 3-3, and the way it got to this tie had to encourage every C-NS fan.
They traded first-period goals, but the Wildcats inched in front 3-2 during the second, determined to finally get an upper hand.
However, with Smith turning back everything in the late stages, the Northstars only needed to convert once in the third period to catch up – which it did, leading to a second tie between the league rivals.
This leads to Tuesday night’s game, C-NS taking on 15-0-1 Rome Free Academy at Kennedy Arena, the Black Knights’ only blemish its 2-2 tie with WG last week in their first encounter since the 2024 sectional final the Wildcats won in overtime.
Before all this, the Northstars hit a snag in last Tuesday’s game against Fayetteville-Manlius, one always carrying intensity because of the fact that they share the same facility at Cicero Twin Rinks.
C-NS lost, 5-4, to the Hornets in a game which would go back and forth from the outset, the main difference the fact that F-M would inch into a 2-1 lead by the end of the first period.
In both the second and third periods, the Northstars would convert, only to have the Hornets answer, especially Jack Lalik, who notched a three-goal hat trick and added an assist as Drew Mayne and Henry Dougherty each got one goal and one assist.
More spread out with its production, C-NS saw Emmit Porter, David Cooley and Dylan Ling each gain one goal and one assist. Alex Kirkby also scored as Gabe Springer, Andrew Gabor, Nate Bustin and Austin Benkoski earned assists and Trevor Smith, in goal, recorded 27 saves.
With little time to fret about it, the Northstars turned around 24 hours later and, against CNY Fusion, had its most lopsided victory of the season, prevailing by a score of 8-1 with hat tricks from both Bustin and Porter.
Tied 1-1 after one period thanks to Jack Hayes’ goal for Fusion, C-NS took over in the second with three unanswered goals and kept adding to the margin late.
No one on Fusion’s defense could contain Bustin, whose four goals set a single-game career mark, or Porter, who scored three times to run his season total to 19 while also earning his 17th and 18th assists.
Cam Walker put in the Northstars’ other goal, while Gabor, Parker Cook, Austin Clarke and Calen Brown all found the assist column.
