After a loss yesterday to North Tonawanda, Williamsville South had the chance for a quick turnaround Sunday afternoon against St. Francis. And aided by two goals from Jake Fuzak, the Billies downed the Red Raiders 4-0. Michael Woods had the shutout in goal.
“It felt pretty good, especially coming off the loss from yesterday,” Mason Cool said. “We really tried to focus on a few things coming into this game to improve our playing, and I feel like we did a lot better today. We really wanted to get better with our forechecking because we didn’t do a great job yesterday, but today was much better.”
“I was expecting a tough game, a big battle,” Cam Osalkowski said. “We just needed to bounce back from our last game, and that’s about it. I knew we were gonna come in tough because we had a tough game yesterday.
The Billies took the lead early on in the game as Cool scored 5:32 into the first, assisted by Fuzak.
Fuzak’s first goal of the game came later in the first on a Billies power play. Fuzak’s size — he’s listed at six-foot-five and 275 pounds — gives him an advantage not only as a football linebacker, but also in hockey. South’s power play strategy is to park Fuzak in front of the net and get him the puck.
“That’s pretty much how it goes, yep,” Fuzak said. “I just absorb as many people as I can while they do all the fancy stuff around the perimeter.”
Fuzak scored again on the power play just 1:32 into the second period, and Osalkowski assisted both goals.
“Definitely something that I’m not used to,” Fuzak said of scoring two goals. “Both the goals were from Cam, and it was pretty much the same exact scenario. I was just next to the goalie, and he fed it to me from the corner, and I just tapped it in. I didn’t really do much on the goals. He did all the work. Our power play looked good today, and that’s just pretty much what happened because of it.”
“I feed it to Fuzak, big guy in front of the net,” Osalkowski said.
Osalkowski scored just a few minutes later to give Williamsville South the 4-0 lead that stood as the final score.
“I just got lucky, drove to the net and got the puck in,” Osalkowski said.
Woods finished the shutout with 20 saves, but there wasn’t one that stuck out in his mind after the game — his teammates made his job easy.
“My teammates helped me out, kept all the pucks to the outside and the perimeter, and made it a lot easier game,” Woods said. “The team really helped me out, and I’m glad we got the win.”
He made sure to mention Fuzak’s big day as well.
“Fuze, he had two goals, not usually a guy we’re looking for two goals from,” Woods said. “It was nice to see that and some secondary scoring.”
The Billies don’t have long to rest up with another game Monday night. But the win on Sunday has them looking forward to Monday’s game a little more.
“I think we really needed the win to get us going and feed off it tomorrow and as the season goes on,” Osalkowski said.
“Hopefully this will be some momentum for tomorrow night,” said Cool.