On the eve of possibly the biggest rivalry game of the season for Canisius, they still had one more game to worry about. The Crusaders faced off against Orchard Park on Sunday afternoon at Buffalo State College, and they kept their focus on the game at hand.
“We’ve actually been preparing for Orchard Park since the beginning of the week,” Canisius coach Sam Belsito said. “I told the kids right off the bat, let’s not think ahead. Let’s take Orchard Park first. So we knew that Orchard Park had won their first two games, that they would be coming in, and that they’d be giving us one of their best games.”
“We expected a close game,” goaltender Tyler Sekuterski said of Orchard Park. “They’re a good team. We didn’t expect to beat them five-nothing. We have Joe’s tomorrow, so we’re obviously kind of thinking about that, but we had to stay focused today, and guys just came out great.”
The result was a 5-0 win for Canisius in which Sekuterski made 22 saves to earn the shutout.
Belsito and his team expected Orchard Park to come out fast and aggressive, as has been characteristic of the Quakers this season. They come out fast and try to wear the other team down. Instead of just trying to keep up, the Crusaders successfully turned the Quakers’ own game plan back on them. Canisius scored early and often, and it hardly mattered what happened once the third period came.
“When we talked in the locker room before the game, we said we wanted to kind of reverse it and get the puck in their zone and work on their defensemen,” Belsito said. “And as it turned out for us today, it worked out. We scored a couple goals quick, and you could see it kind of took the steam out of their sails. Kind of pushed them back a little bit, so it was good for us.”
“We had to try and match their speed and get one step above them,” junior forward Clayton Karam said. “We did that. We wore them down; played their own game against them.”
It was Karam who gave the Crusaders the quick start they needed. He scored twice within the first 7:50 of the first period, and he was excited after the game to be able to help his team.
“It was a relief to get those behind my back, get the game started off well. My teammates helped set me up. I just had to be there,” he said. “It was great. When you score the first goal, everyone’s going crazy. Then you score the second goal, and everyone’s going nuts, jumping off the bench. It’s just a great feeling.”
John McMahon and Callahan Glinski added goals later in the first period, and David Evans scored Canisius’ fifth goal 8:10 into the second period. For much of the second and third, though, the Crusaders focused on defense and other things.
“We tried to work on some things, work on faceoffs,” Karam said. “We weren’t focused on putting 20 goals in the net.”
And though Sekuterski finished with the shutout, the defense provided by his entire team made his job easy, and he was quick to thank them.
“They had a couple good chances, but other than that, defensemen played really well, kept shots to the outside,” Sekuterski said. “I think that shutout’s as much mine as it is my defensemen. They played really well for me today.”
“Sek again was a wall for us,” Belsito said. “When he was called upon, he made the saves. I don’t think he had too many difficult saves today. I thought our defense — I thought the whole five-man unit on the ice played well defensively in our zone. We contained the center of the ice pretty well, and we like to block shots, which is a great thing. But when it was called upon for Sek to make a save, he was there again for us.”
The Canisius players were more than ready to shift their focus to tomorrow’s game as soon as today’s ended. Their preparation, both physical and mental, began immediately.
“Lot of hydration, obviously,” Sekuterski said. “What we eat tomorrow is gonna be big, so guys just gotta come back focused. Can’t dwell on a win.”
“It’s gonna be a big game,” Karam said. “HarborCenter. Lights on us. We gotta show up, we gotta perform, we gotta get ready for it.”
And the rivalry was only fueled in the last meeting between the two teams, when Canisius upset St. Joe’s to win the Section VI Catholic Schools championship.
“We know that this is just as big a game for us as it is for them,” Belsito said. “Obviously, we knocked them out of the championship last year. It’s something that we circled on our calendar at the beginning of the year, so the guys already in the locker room right now — you can even tell that they’re already starting to get mentally prepared for tomorrow. So it’ll be a fun game tomorrow night.”