The last time Kenmore East and Hamburg faced each other, the goaltender duel carried on through four overtimes before Kenmore East broke the scoreless tie and won to advance to the small school finals for the second year in a row.
Sunday afternoon’s game once again displayed strong goaltending by both Hamburg’s Griffin Coppola and Kenmore East’s Chase Ford, but Kenmore East came away with a 5-0 victory as Anthony Tulipane and Chad Diaz each scored twice and AJ Marinelli added a goal as well.
“We knew they were gonna come out hard, [with us] ending their season the last two years, so we just expected a hard fought battle from both teams,” Tulipane said.
“We beat them last year in four overtimes, and we kind of had a big rivalry with them,” Diaz said. “So we knew they were gonna be fired up for this one, and we just wanted to take care of our business.”
Kenmore East coach Kyle Pray knew that Hamburg had lost some depth at defense, but it was Coppola in net for last year’s four-overtime nail-biter, and Hamburg has a couple of strong forwards in Jason Lucarelli and Josh Dake.
“We knew they had lost some guys on defense, so we really emphasized using our speed and everything,” Pray said. “And then the same goalie was back as last year. We had that four-overtime game with them last year, so we knew that was a big thing, was to make sure we got shots to the net with him. And then up front, Lucarelli and Dake are good players too, so we knew we had to neutralize them.”
From the start, Kenmore East got shots to the net. Both of Tulipane’s goals came in the first period, less than six minutes apart.
“Just throwing pucks to the net and just putting home rebounds,” Tulipane said. “We did a good job of just throwing pucks to the net.”
On most nights, it’s Tulipane, Marinelli, and Trevor Pray scoring the goals for Kenmore East. On Sunday, Tulipane scored twice, Marinelli added another late in the second period, and Pray assisted each of those goals. But late in the third period, Chad Diaz scored his first and seconds goals of the season, and for a team that’s looking for depth beyond Tulipane, Marinelli, and Pray, Diaz’s goals made his coach very happy, as well as himself.
“Chad’s a very hard worker, and he tries to do the right things out there, and the one goal was a beautiful pass out of the corner for him to bury it,” Kyle Pray said. “And then the other one — we talk about when pucks are coming to the net, just get a stick on it for a tip or anything like that, and he did it and perfectly tipped it up into the upper corner, so it was good. He did a lot of the right things that we’ve been emphasizing about going to the net and everything, so it was good to see him get two.”
“I think I just kind of got some bounces,” Diaz said. “Sometimes this year, I thought I should have had a few, and bounces didn’t go my way, so I guess the bounces just went my way tonight.”
Leading up to Diaz’s goals, Pray was unhappy with the way his team played. The players strayed away from playing a strong team game, and it could have cost them.
“I was happy with the first period and a half,” Pray said. “And then I thought we tried to do too much on our own. Had a lot of guys just try to take it and carry it themselves, so I don’t like how we got away from the team game a little bit. But I was real happy to see our third line, with Diaz, contribute too there — that line get on the board there, because we’re trying to get more balance with scoring. It was nice to see them get those two goals.”
Diaz’s second goal came with 1.1 seconds left in regulation to seal the 5-0 win. For Hamburg, Coppola gave Kenmore East what Pray expected as he made 27 saves on 32 shots. Ford made 19 saves for Kenmore East for his first shutout.
“He made some huge saves,” Tulipane said of Ford. “A couple breakaways, a couple two-on-ones — he just came up big for us.”
“The whole game, I was just so nervous,” Ford said. “I wanted to keep the shutout going, and [Kenmore East] played some good defense going into the third period.”
The win not only gave Kenmore East two points and moved the Bulldogs up to third place in Division 2, but it also had an impact on playoff seedings with both them and Hamburg playing in the small school playoffs at the end of the season.
“This was an important game today because not only is it a divisional opponent, but it was also an opponent that we’re battling for sectional seeds with, so that’s why this was especially a big game,” Pray said. “But we have to get back to work this week. We have two very hard games next weekend against Will North and Orchard Park, so both those games will be extremely tough.”
Both Williamsville North and Orchard Park are Division 1 teams, and right now each team has two wins. Diaz hopes that the momentum from Sunday’s win over Hamburg carries into next weekend’s games.
“We got two tough opponents next week, and this is just momentum going into two big games,” Diaz said.
Ford knows that winning those two games would feel even better than Sunday’s win.
“I’m pumped about it,” Ford said of the win. “That’s a big win, but we have two games coming up next weekend against Orchard Park and Will North, and those will be even bigger wins if we get those.”