On Monday night, Kenmore East finally had another shot at rival Williamsville East. The Bulldogs and Flames met in both teams’ season opener on Dec. 3, and Williamsville East came away with a 2-1 win that night.
But on Monday, the Bulldogs’ offense came to life, and AJ Marinelli and Trevor Pray each scored twice as Kenmore East did enough to fix what had gone wrong in December to come away with a 4-1 win in January.
“We wanted to correct what we did wrong the first time around, which was, we were too much on the perimeter,” Kenmore East coach Kyle Pray said after Monday’s win. “And we got the puck more to the middle of the ice, and although I thought we did a better job of that tonight, I didn’t think we did a great job of it, so it’s something we’ll still continue to work on. We missed a lot of golden opportunities. I thought we could have had more goals tonight.”
The rivalry and the loss in December were enough motivation for the Bulldogs on Monday, but they didn’t expect it to be easy.
“We expected a good game,” Kenmore East defenseman Joey Spataro said. “The first time around, we lost to them, obviously, and we were just hoping for a good game, and I guess we came out with a good result.”
“Just knowing that we’re rivals and they already beat us once this year, pretty much pushed us to go for it,” Marinelli said.
“I expected a tough battle and them coming out hard, but I knew we were ready for them since we lost,” said Trevor Pray.
Marinelli scored first for the Bulldogs 5:25 into the first, with Trevor and Cullen Smyth picking up the assists. When Marinelli started to describe his goal, Trevor was quick to remind his teammate of how he’d set him up.
“Trevor made a nice move, slid it over to AJ,” Trevor said.
“I didn’t even know it went in at first,” Marinelli said.
But it did, and Kenmore East had a quick 1-0 lead. Trevor added to the lead just more than two minutes later. This time, it was Spataro and Marinelli with the assists.
Spataro, with his shoulder wrapped in ice after the game, described how he’d set up the goal.
“The puck just came to me, and I was coming around the net, and I knew I couldn’t shoot with the shoulder not feeling well, so I just slid it over to Trevor, and he put it in,” Spataro said.
“Joey slid it over to me, and I saw a little bit of the net open, so I just roofed it,” Trevor said.
Williamsville East’s Alex Finley scored 3:51 into the third period, assisted by Mike Steffan and Aaron Bengart, to cut Kenmore East’s lead to 2-1. But the Bulldogs’ defense held the Flames to just 17 shots on goal, and goalie Brad Hermann stopped all but one.
“I just think the whole team playing defense [helped], like the forwards getting back and helping,” Spataro said. “That helped a lot because the D can’t do it all by themselves.”
There was more energy from the team as a whole than in the past couple of losses, and coach Pray believes his players were hungrier this weekend and willing to work to score goals in whatever way possible. They defeated McQuaid 6-2 on Saturday before winning Monday’s game against Williamsville East.
“Guys just being hungry enough to win one-on-one battles; that’s what the big difference was,” Pray said. “And getting pucks to the net and then being hungry for the rebounds in front of the net. Sometimes we tend to be a team that wants to be too pretty and get the fancy goal, and we do have very skilled players, but I figure to be successful, you gotta get those ugly goals as well, so we need to continue to do that. We did that against McQuaid. We got a lot of pucks to the net, which was great, and we need to continue to do that more.”
“I thought I definitely had more energy out there,” Trevor said. “And me and AJ actually just got put back on a line together, so we’re working good together right now, and now we’ve had — both of us combined — had 10 of our last 10 goals.”
Marinelli’s second goal of the game came with just 1:32 to go in regulation, and Trevor scored with just 6.5 seconds remaining to finish off the 4-1 win. It was no surprise that each had the primary assist on the other’s goal.
“AJ just slid it over back door with six seconds left, and it was a nice pass by him, so I knew I had an open net, so I just shot it,” Trevor explained his goal.
The win built up the Bulldogs’ confidence as they showed that they could score four goals against their rival. Trevor also mentioned those missed opportunities that could have resulted in a few more goals.
“I think it just brought our confidence up a little bit as a team that we beat them by three goals and knowing that we probably could have had a couple more,” Trevor said. “AJ had four breakaways that he missed, so it just shows that we could put more pucks in the net too.”
The win moved Kenmore East into first place in Division 2. The logjam that is the Fed technically has Kenmore East, Williamsville East, and Clarence tied for first in point totals, but the Bulldogs have a win more than the other two. But with hockey left to be played and several talented programs, the division could come right down to the very last game.
“We’re happy because that puts us, right now in the division, we’re in a three-way tie with them and Clarence, and I think we have a game in hand,” Pray said. “But with each team having about seven or eight games left still, it’s still gonna be a dog fight here down to the end with each team trying to go for that one seed. It’s two very good programs, and we can beat each other on a given night.”
Kenmore East won’t soon forget losing to Williamsville East two years in a row in the Section VI finals, but Monday’s game gave the Bulldogs reason to believe that maybe this is the year they take the championship. That’s if, of course, both teams make it that far.
“It definitely brings our confidence up, just knowing that we could beat them and knowing that come First Niagara, if we get there, that we could put them away,” Trevor said.