ROME – While it has taken part in big events and even once had a game at the JMA Dome, the Cicero-North Syracuse ice hockey team had not experienced playing for a Section III championship.
Getting this chance would require the Northstars to win Wednesday night’s Section III Division I semifinal against Rome Free Academy at Kennedy Arena, the Black Knights’ home ice.
For two periods, that quest was well within reach, but in the final period all of it got away as the Northstars saw the Black Knights take charge and prevail by a 5-2 margin to set up a rematch of the 2024 title game against West Genesee next Monday night at Upstate Medical Arena.
Scheduled to meet late in January, C-NS and RFA saw that game postponed and not made up, so these teams would get at each other without a regular-season template from which to draw information.
They played through a scoreless first period, but in the second it got active. Jackson Marchione put RFA in front in the opening minute and, 40 seconds later, Tyler Lokker, who assisted on the first goal, made it 2-0 in the Black Knights’ favor.
C-NS absorbed all this, then waited just 20 seconds after Lokker’s goal to get on the board when Nate Bustin converted off a feed from Emmit Porter. Just past the midway point of the period, Porter took an RFA turnover and fed it to Andrew Gabor, who fired it past Donte Sparace and tied it, 2-2.
They stayed that way until the third. With 12:14 left Marchione converted on a wrist shot to put RFA back in front. Two minutes later Lokker pounced on a rebound before Trevor Smith could get it and scored his second goal of the night.
Down 4-2, C-NS would gain a series of power plays down the stretch, including one on a five-minute major, but not convert any of them. RFA’s defense preserved the lead and Jacob Bruno’s empty-net goal with 1:58 left sealed it.
Lokker either scored or assisted on all five of the Black Knights’ goals, overcoming 27 saves by Smith as Sparace recorded 21 saves.
Thus the Northstars finished a 15-4-2 season where it established itself as a top program with, among other things, two ties against West Genesee. Smith, Porter and Bustin graduate, with Gabor and Jase Knopp potentially leading a deep returning cast for the 2025-26 season.
